THE 

GOSPEL OF COM MON SENSE 

AS CONTAINED IN THE 

CANONICAL EPISTLE OF JAMES 

BY 

CHARLES pr DEEMS, D.D, LL.D. 

PASTOR OF THE CHURCH OF THE STRANGERS 




NEW YORK 
WILBUR B. KETCHAM 

13 Cooper Union 
Edinburgh, Scotland: JAMES GEMMELL 




Copyright, 1888, by Charles F. Deems. 



TO THE 

REV. DR. GUSTAV GOTTHEIL, 
RABBI OF THE TEMPLE EMMANU-EL, NEW YORK, 
AND TO 

RT. REV. HENRY C. POTTER, 
BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OF NEW YORK, 
WHO PRESENT EXCELLENT TYPES, 
ONE OF WHAT JAMES WAS AS AN ISRAELITE 
AND THE OTHER WHAT HE WAS AS A CHRISTIAN 
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED, 
WITH PERMISSION, BY THEIR FRIEND AND BROTHER, 
ITS AUTHOR. 



PREFACE. 



Life is practical. Men need plain rules for their 
daily guidance. Plain rules depend on principles. 
Principles are abstract, and belong to the domain of 
philosophy. We owe incalculable debts to the men 
who work in this department ; but they are cut off 
from the sympathy of the mass of mankind, who can- 
not appreciate their labors. 

There is, however, something which can be appre- 
ciated by us all, namely, the plain teaching of those 
rules by which daily life is guided. It is a good sign 
that there is an increase of books on ethics, books 
which can be understood by even those who are so 
unlearned as not to know what the word " ethics *' 
means. 

This volume is in that line. The Hebrew and 
Christian Sacred Scriptures are not only authoritative 
in religion ; they are rich in ethics. A visible life 
constructed on the Decalogue, the Book of Proverbs, 
the Sermon on the Mount and the Epistle of James 
would fill the loftiest, broadest and most beautiful out- 
line of manhood. The Epistle of James has always 
been a great favorite with the writer of these pages. 
He never sympathized with the estimate once placed 
upon it by Luther, who called it an epistle of straw," 
because it was not robust with theological discussions 
like the Pauline writings. This estimate Luther lived 



vi. 



Preface, 



long enough and grew wise enough to change. That 
great scholar and teacher, the late Roswell D. Hitch- 
cock, LL.D., with whose friendship I was honored, 
once said that the application of the Epistle of James 
in the region of economy is that which alone can save 
our civilization, and it is reported of the third Earl 
of Balcarras that he was accustomed to express him- 
self as delighted with the Epistle of James as "the 
production of a gentleman/* 

It seems fitting that the teaching of this admirable 
Letter should be so expounded as to be adapted to 
men's surroundings in this day. To that task the 
author has addressed himself. 

While everything has been excluded from his pages 
which could be suspected of indicating a desire to 
appear learned, the author feels sure that all real 
scholars will perceive that he has not written with- 
out research. For business-men, workingmen, busy 
women, young people and simple souls more than for 
the learned, this volume has been written in the earn- 
est hope that its perusal will quicken the conscience 
and shape the life of the reader. No Greek in the New 
Testament seems so beautiful as that of the writer of 
the Epistle of James ; it has been a pleasure to make 
a new and careful translation thereof for the author's 
own use : this he has interwoven with the discussion 
of the text for the benefit of those who know nothing 
of Greek. 

This is not a volume of sermons. Ordinarily that 
which is fit to be preached is unfit to be printed. The 
rhetoric of appeal to the jury is not the style of ad- 
dress to the court. But all the discussions in this 



Preface, 



Vll. 



volume were loosened out and inflamed for the pulpit 
and delivered in a series of discourses in the Church 
of the Strangers, in New York, in the spring of 1888. 
They were listened to by thousands of hearers from 
different parts of the country, among whom were some 
Israelites and some Hebrew-Christians, and to the 
frequent request, by letter or otherwise, from those 
who heard is chiefly due the determination to publish 
this volume. 

It will be perceived that this book is dedicated to 
a Jewish Rabbi and a Christian Bishop. Both men 
have been long known and highly regarded, and each 
has shown me valued personal kindnesses. Each gave 
me permission to make the dedication ; but I think 
it due to both to state that neither knew anything 
of any views set forth in any portion of the book, 
and neither is at all responsible for anything it con- 
tains : and I think I ought to add, each was too 
considerate to hedge himself by even requesting the 
making of this statement. Each knows that I am a 
Protestant Christian, and believes that, while I fear- 
lessly announce my convictions, I am incapable of 
wantonly assailing anything loved and revered by any 
sect of devout Christians or Israelites. 

Church of the Strangers, 
New York. 



CONTENTS. 



I. 

Introductory to the Epistle of James, pp. 13-27. 
Authorship. — Catholic Epistles, — Epistle of James.- — The Women 
at the Cross, — Perpetual Virginity. — The Mary and Her Sons. 

— The Lord's Brother. —Some Account of James, — Character- 
istics of James, — Date and Motive of Epistle, — Present Use 
of Epistle. 

II. 

Introductory Matter of the Epistle, pp. 28-66. 
Salutation. — A Great Man^s Modesty. — The Greeting.- — Trials of 
Life: A Wrong Theory, — Special Sources of Trouble. — Joy 
in Trials. — What is Temptation? — Grounds of Rejoicing. — 
God^s Providence. — Effect of Trial. — ''Perfect'' and En- 
tire. — The Giving God. — What is Wisdom? — Every True 
Prayer Answered, — Doubts. — Specific Forms of Trouble. — 
From Low to High. — From High to Low. — A Higher Thought. 

— The Faithless Poor cannot Rejoice, — The Faithless Rich can- 
not Rejoice. — The Faithful Rich. — Happiness in Trials. 

III. 

Temptation to Visionariness, pp. 67-86. 
Unworthy Thoughts of God. — Origin of Evil, — Not in God. — In 
the Individual. — Heredity, — Environment, — The Genesis of 
Evil, — Drawn Away*' and Enticed.*' — Companions and 
Amuseinents. — Plan of the Seducer. — A Hortible Picture. — 
A Great Error.— A Great Truth.-^The Father of Lights,— 
The Changeless Father. 



X. 



Contents, 



IV. 

The New Life Versus Fanaticism, pp. 87-109. 
Regeneration. — Fanaticism. — Swift to Hear arid Sloiv to Speak. — 
Slow to Wrath. — Preparation of Heart. — Listening to Preach- 
ing. The Ingrafted Word. — The Law of Liberty. — A Mis- 
take as to Religion. — Religion in Character, — A Life of 
Beneficence. — A Life of Purity. 

V. 

The Temptation to Partiality, pp. 110-132. 
Partiality for the Rich. — Going to Court. — Evil of Partiality. — 
On the Side of the Poor, — On the Side of the Rich. — A Reply 
to the Partialis t, — A Great Principle. — A Necessary Princi- 
ple. — A Guarded Expression. — Choose Mercy. 

VI. 

Faith and Works, pp. 133-150. 
Justification. — Paul and James.— Theology and Ethics. — The 
Practical Test. — Facts f Experience. — The Case o f A braham . 
— The Philotheans. — The Case of Rahab. — Frederick W. 
Robertson* s Illustration.— -Archbishop Whatel/s Illustration. 

VII. 

Temptations of the Tongue, pp. 151-187. 
Fanaticism and the Tongue. — The Tongue in Public, — The 
Tongue in Private. — The Great Responsibility,— Danger of 
the Tongue. — The Mental Tubercle. — A Perfect Man. — 
Tongue and Pen, — A Publisher* s Responsibility. — Satan* s 
Tongue — One Untamable Thing, — Religious Uses of the 
Tongue. — Source of the Evil. — * ' Wisdom " and * 'Knowledge** 
•^Two Wisdoms. — Wisdom from Above, — Characteristics, — 
A Cheering Promise. 



Contents, 



XI. 



VIII. 

Demoniacal Wisdom, pp. 188-198. 
Fruits Thereof, — False Christs, — Evils of War. — Whence come 
Wars, — The Fruitlessness f Sin . — Prayer, 

IX. 

WORLDLY-MINDEDNESS, pp. I99-233. 

Reproaches, — The Religious Covenant a Marriage, — 7' he Love of 
God and Worldly-mindedness. — Lover of the World — Holy 
Scripture against Worldly-mindedness, — The Holy Spit it 
against Worldly-mindedness. — God is against Pride. — True 
Conversion. — Submission to God. — No Morality Possible to 
A theism. — Who is a Moral Man ? — What is a Devil? — Why 
Men do not Submit to God. — Drawing Nigh to God. — Case of 
Abraham. — Case of Moses. — Case of Isaiah. — Cleansed 
Hands. — Evil Speaking. — Contradiction. — Evil Hearing. — 
The Mosaic Law. — One Lawgiver. — The Restless Spirit. — 
Self-confidence, — ''Deo Volente.'' 

X. 

The Sinfulness of Uselessness, pp. 234-254. 
A Principle of Varied Applicatiotz. — Sins of O^nission'* and 
Commission,'" —Process of Descent. — Process of Ascent, — 
The Acted Parable. — The Destructive Napkin. — Sin in 
Purple. — The Last Judgment, — The Nearest First. — The 
Implication of Altruism. — Knowledge Aggravates Sin. — The 
Money Illustration. — Four Ways Open, 



XI. 

Impending Judgment, pp. 255-270. 



xii. 



Contents, 



XII. 

The Final Theme, pp. 271-322. 
Patience, — Time a Factor. — The Sin of Grumbling, — Example of 
the Prophets, — Illustrious Gentile Sufferer, — Against Oaths, 
— Vows in Trouble, — Temperance Pledges, — Conjuration, — 
Profanity. — Its Utter Uselessness, — -Judicial Oaths. — Prayer 
Cure. — The Early Congregational Order. — Charismata. — 
Sickness and Sin, — Visiting the Sick, — Confession, — The 
Last Sentence, — Truth. — Error. — Creed. — A Grand Possibil- 
ity, — Covering Sin, — True Liberty, — Immortal Fame, 



THE GOSPEL OF COMMON SENSE. 



I. 

Introductory to the Epistle of James. 

THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 

IN the arrangement of the earliest collection 
of Christian literature, the Evangely has the 
precedence. Then follows The Acts of the 
Apostles/* containing the beginnings of the his- 
tory of Christianity. That wonderful series of 
letters, written by the Apostle Paul to several of 
the earliest churches, contained such a body of 
philosophical, ethical, and rehgious teaching as 
naturally to form a most important section in itself. 
Then there existed the writings of other Apostles, 
having equal authority with the writings of Paul, 
namely, the Epistle of James, the two Epistles 
of Peter, the three Epistles of John, and the 
Epistle of Jude. To these seven was given the 
title/^ The Cathohc Epistles." 

They were so called probably because they were 
not addressed to particular churches, but to the 
Church at large. Even the second and third of 



14 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



John, although they have a personal address, are 
so constructed as to be edifying to the whole body 
of Christians everywhere. 

THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 

The authorship of the first of the CathoHc 
Epistles probably all students have found, with 
Neander, to be the most difificult question in 
Apostolic history. The difficulty possibly arises 
from the commonness of the name James, or Jaco- 
bus, among the Jews at the time of Jesus, and the 
slightness of the specific notice of some who bear 
the name. Let us see if we can make it out. 

When our Lord was crucified there were four 
women who were witnesses of the awful scene, 
Mary, the mother of Jesus, and her sister Salome, 
who was wife of Zebedee ; Mary, the wife of Clo- 
pas, sometimes called Alphaeus, and Mary Magda- 
lene. The last was unmarried; the third was 
probably the sister of Joseph, and so sister-in-law 
of the mother of Jesus, or Joseph's brother may 
have been Clopas. The second was the Mother- 
Mary's own sister. Each of the married women 
seems to have had a son named James. Salome 
Zebedee was the mother of James, the brother of 
John ; Mary Clopas was the mother of James the 
Less ; and our Lord's mother had among the sons 
and daughters born to her after Jesus a son 
named James. 

Let us read over the record to make this clear 
to us. John 19: 25, reads There were standing 



TJie Gospel of Common Sense. 15 



by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's 
sister, Mary [the wife] of Clopas, and Mary Mag- 
dalene." In Matthew 27 : 56, three women are 
mentioned, Mary Magdalene and Mary the 
mother of James [the Less] and of Joses, andxki^ 
mother of Zebedee*s children/' In Mark 15 : 40, 
the record is in this order: Mary Magdalene, and 
Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses, 
and Salome." Luke gives no catalogue. 

RELATIONS OF THE WOMEN AT THE CROSS. 

Several interesting things are to be seen in 
these passages. They settle the fact that there 
were four distinguished women at the cross. They 
show that our Lord's mother's sister, His aunt, 
named Salome, had married Zebedee and become 
the mother of James and John, so that John was 
first cousin to Jesus, not on the side of His puta- 
tive father, Joseph, but on the side of His real 
mother, Mary. It is to be remarked that in Mat- 
thew and Mark the name of Mary of Magdala heads 
the list. She seems to have been the dearest person 
on earth to Jesus. Perhaps John was next. A very 
lovable men was he. Like all very lovable men 
he had his little human weaknesses. With all his 
excellent qualities, the record represents him as 
irascible, vain and ambitious. Was he also a little 
jealous } He puts Mary Magdalene last, while 
the others put her first. He places his mother 
next to the mother of the Lord as he would have 
placed himself and his brother, the one on the 



1 6 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



right and the other on the left of the Lord, when 
He should come in His glory (Matt. 20 : 21). 
Moreover, the indirectness of his manner in 
speaking of himself as the disciple, whom Jesus 
loved " (John 13 : 23), comes out in his designation 
of his own mother as Jesus's mother's sister. 

Now, two of these women had each a son 
called James, namely Salome Zebedee and Mary 
Clopas. Was either of these the author of the 
epistle ? It certainly was not James Zebedee, 
who was beheaded A.D. 44 or, as some suppose, 
A.D. 41. He was the first of the Apostles who 
gained martyrdom (Acts 12 : 2). James the Less 
is mentioned as an Apostle by each of the 
Evangelists and in the Acts of the Apostles. But 
there is still a third James mentioned. In the Epis- 
tle to the Galatians, Paul records a visit which he 
made to Peter at Jerusalem. This occurred when, 
Paul had been converted at least three years. 
He says (i : 19) : But other of the Apostles saw 
I none, save James the Lord's brother." The 
Lord's brother," who is he } Between him and 
the little James does not the authorship of the 
epistle rest } 

PERPETUAL VIRGINITY. 

For centuries the run of comment on the fam- 
ily relations of Jesus was in favor of consider- 
ing James the Less, the son of Alphaeus (who was 
supposed to be the same as Clopas), as one of 
those called the '^brothers" of the Lord. Great 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 17 



ingenuity has been expended on this theory, but 
nothing could sustain it a moment in the presence 
of common sense if there had not been some 
hypothesis to be sustained. That hypothesis was 
the perpetual virginity of Mary, the mother of 
Jesus, To the assumption of that as a fact was 
to be reconciled the existence of such facts and 
passages as the following : 

THE MARY AND HER SONS. 
Mary and her ''sons" are associated in frequent 
mention. While He yet talked to the people, 
behold His mother and His brethren stood with- 
out " (Matt. 12: 46). This phraseology shows 
that the relation of these parties to Jesus must 
have been generally known. In the next verse 
it is recorded, Then one said to Him : * Thy 
mother and Thy brethren stand without, desiring 
to speak to Thee.'" In Mark 3:31, a similar 
phrase" is used: "There came then His brethren 
and His mother," and in Luke 8 : 19, the very 
same phrase. At the beginning of His public 
ministry (John 2 : 12) He went down to Caper- 
naum, He and His mother, and His brethren, and 
His disciples." All this represents a family, a 
family keeping close together. What have the 
boys of Clopas and his wife Mary to do with this 
family } 

We find that James, the son of Clopas, believed 
in Jesus, and was actually one of the Apostles at 
a time when the brothers of Jesus did not believe 



1 8 The Gospel of Conunon Sense, 



on Him (John 7 : 5), among whom must have been 
His brother jAMES. The same man could not be 
at once an apostle and an infidel. 

In the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles 
there is a simple and touching description of the 
state of affairs after the ascension of Jesus into 
heaven. From the Mount of Olives the Apos- 
tles returned to Jerusalem and established a sort 
of Christian community. The list of the eleven 
Apostles is given in detail, and amongst them is 
the name of ''James, the son of Alphaeus," or 
Clopas. Then it is added, These all continued 
with one accord in prayer and supplication with 
the women, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and 
with His brethren^ Plainly James, the son of 
Alphaeus, was not of His brethren." 

THE lord's brother. 

Returning to the passage in Galatians (i : 19), 
we must recollect that Paul knew the names of 
the Apostles and their relations to one another. 
He went to Jerusalem to pay a visit to Peter, to 
become acquainted with Peter" are his words. 
He must have known that James, the son of 
Alphaeus,'* or Clopas, was an Apostle. But he 
says that he saw ''not one other Apostle" ; then 
he did not see James the Less ; but he says that 
he did see another distinguished Christian whom 
he calls "James, the Lords brother." 

In face of this record resort must be had to the 
very contradictory theory that somehow or other 



Tlie Gospel of Common Sense. ig 



the James of Alphaeus was so a member of the 
family of Mary as to be called her ''son " and the 
''brother" of Jesus. If in the Epistle to the 
Galatians, Paul had written " Thomas," or " Bar- 
tholomew," or " Philip," or any other name, the 
same ingenuity would have been expended and 
with the same result. The fooHsh doctrine of the 
perpetual virginity of Mary was to be maintained. 
It was founded on the beHef that in man celibacy 
is a virtue, and that in woman virginity is a state 
of sanctity, and is superior to motherhood. This 
bad doctrine has done much to pervert the ideals 
and corrupt the morals of Christendom. The 
opposite must be taught. Men and women must 
learn that celibacy when it is of a man's choice, 
or a woman's, is a crime against God, against na- 
ture and society, and that the manor woman who 
passes through life without achieving parentage 
has been living in sin, unless it can be shown that 
there is physical disability or other plainly 
marked providential hindrance. This pernicious 
doctrine brought weakness to Christianity in the 
earlier centuries, did much to fill the middle ages 
with a large and bad crowd of unmarried women 
and men, and is in the latter part of the nine- 
teenth century doing a vast harm in circles of 
married as well as of unmarried people. Every 
pastor in a great city who has the intimate con- 
fidence of the people must have learned that 
much ruin has come to the bodily, mental and 



20 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



spiritual health of both men and women by habits 
produced by the belief that motherhood was a 
thing to be avoided or, at least, that virginity was 
preferable to motherhood. The very moment 
Mary began in any sense to be the mother of 
Jesus, she ceased to be a virgin. It was no one 
other than the Holy Ghost which supplanted her 
virginity with motherhood: and once a mother, 
she would naturally, as a good young woman, if 
she lived decently with her husband, become a 
mother again. 

The most natural is the easiest theory in this 
case. It requires no ingenious twisting of the 
record and no strained explanation of any passage 
in the Holy Scripture, Mary had at least seven 
children, JesuSy the miraculously begotten who is 
called her ''first-hovn son " (Luke 2 : 7), four other 
sons, one of whom was named James, and at least 
two daughters, all the children of Joseph by 
Mary, and begotten in lawful wedlock. This is 
the natural reading of Matt. 13 155, 56. It had 
been a hard providence to make Joseph perpetu- 
ally childless in return for his devoutly beautiful 
behavior under the trying circumstances of Mary s 
condition during their espousal. 

The name of James is given as that of the 
author of this epistle. It is most reasonable to 
believe that it must have been one of the three 
Jameses intimately associated with the career of 
our Lord. It has been shown that it could 



TJic Gospel of Common Sense, 21 



have been neither John Zebedee's brother James 
nor James Clopas, called James the Less. As 
Mary, the mother of Jesus, had four sons, the 
eldest of whom was named James and called 
the brother of the Lord," all historical and 
moral probabilities point to him as the author of 
the epistle. 

SOME ACCOUNT OF JAMES. 

James, the brother of the Lord" (Gal. i : 19), 
became a convert to Christianity after the resur- 
rection of our Lord. He was held in high repute 
by the Jews and by the Apostles. According to 
Eusebius (Eccles. Hist. 2 : i), he was the first 
pastor (overseer or bishop) of the Church at Jeru- 
salem, and was surnamed The Jitst on account of 
his eminent virtues. The Apostles all looked up 
to him. When Peter was brought out of the 
prison to the house of Rhoda (Acts 12) he sent a 
special announcement thereof to James. In the 
council held at Jerusalem, probably A.D. 53, to 
settle the controversy between Paul and Barna- 
bas on the one side, and certain Judaizing 
teachers who insisted that the Gentile converts 
should be circumcised, after all had spoken it was 
James who gave the decision. 

The importance of this council and of the in- 
fluence of James will justify giving space to 
the following extract from Milman's History of 
Christianity" (L, 403): 

The barrier was now thrown down, but Ju- 



22 



TJie Gospel of Common Sense, 



daism rallied, as it were, for a last effort behind 
its ruins. It was now manifest that Christianity 
would no longer endure the rigid nationalism of 
the Jew, who demanded that every proselyte to 
his faith should be enrolled as a member of his race. 
Circumcision could no longer be maintained as 
the seal of conversion, but still the total abroga- 
tion of the Mosaic law, the extinction of all their 
privileges of descent, the substitution of a purely 
religious for a national community, to the Chris- 
tianized Jew, appeared, as it were, a kind of 
treason against the religious majesty of their an- 
cestors. A conference became necessary be- 
tween the leaders of the Christian community to 
avert an inevitable collision which might be fatal 
to the progress of the religion. Already the 
peace of the flourishing community at Antioch 
had been disturbed by some of the more zealous 
converts from Jerusalem, who still asserted the 
indispensable necessity of circumcision. Paul and 
Barnabas proceeded as delegates from the com- 
munity at Antioch ; and what is called the 
Council of Jerusalem, a full assembly of all the 
Apostles then present in the metropolis, solemnly 
debated this great question. How far the earlier 
Apostles were themselves emancipated from the 
inveterate Judaism does not distinctly appear ; 
but the situation of affairs required the most 
nicely balanced judgment united with the utmost 
moderation of temper. On one side, a Pharisaic 



Tlie Gospel of Common Sense, 



23 



party had brought into Christianity a rigorous 
and passionate attachment to the Mosaic institutes 
in their strictest and most minute provisions. On 
the other hand, beyond the borders of Palestine, 
far the greater number of converts had been 
formed from that intermediate class which stood 
between Heathenism and Judaism. There might 
seem, then, no alternative but to estrange one 
party by the abrogation of the Law, or the other 
by the strict enforcement of all its provisions. 
Each party might appeal to the divine sanction. 
To the eternal, the irrepealable sanctity of the 
Law, the God of their fathers, according to 
Jewish opinion, was solemnly pledged ; while the 
vision of Peter, which authorized the admission 
of the Gentiles into Christianity, still more the 
success of Paul and Barnabas in proselyting the 
heathen, accompanied by undeniable manifesta- 
tions of divine favor, seemed irresistible evidence 
of the divine sanction to the abrogation of the 
Law, as far as concerned the Gentile proselytes. 
The influence of James effected a discreet and 
temperate compromise : Judaism, as it were, cap- 
itulated on honorable terms." 

CHARACTERISTICS OF JAMES. 
This remarkable deliverance reveals two of the 
striking characteristics of James, namely, his 
strong adherence to the old form of the faith in 
Judaism, and his rare common sense, by which he 
saved the new form of the faith from unnecessary 



24 Tlie Gospel of Common Sense. 



collision with Judaism. A decision which pleased 
the Apostles " (even Paul and Peter as well as 
the others), '^and elders with the whole Church,'^ 
must have been founded on a common sense of a 
very high order. It was a blessed thing for the 
first church in Jerusalem and for early Christianity 
among the Gentiles and for our Holy Faith ever 
since, that the first pastor in Jerusalem was not 
Paul, nor Peter, nor John, but the wiser, more 
prudent, more discreet JAMES, the brother of the 
Lord. These two characteristics of an ardent 
Jewish sentiment and surpassing common sense 
appear in his epistle, which is the first in order of 
the Catholic Epistles, and is addressed to the 
twelve tribes scattered abroad.'* That it was 
addressed to those Christians who had been Jews 
rather than Gentile Christians shows where his 
heart lay. The pastor of the church in Jerusalem 
could not lose sight of the sheep of his flock even 
when they were scattered through Judea and 
Samaria (Acts 8 : i) and perhaps still further 
abroad. They were endeared to him by the 
national relationship, and bound to him by the 
bond of the Faith, the faith of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, the Lord of glory " (2 : i); and he was a 
servant of God, even of the Lord Jesus Christ*' 
(i : i), and was sustained by the hope of the 
coming of the Lord" (5*7), with which he 
sought to fortify his suffering brethren who had 
fled before the storm of persecution then raging 
in the Holy City. 



TJie Gospel of Common Sense. 25 



The pastoral office in his day was not so much 
one of authority as of influence. If it had been 
the former, Paul or Peter would have filled it. It 
appears to have been reached by personal influ- 
ence, of which James seems to have had much 
more than any of the other brethren, and on that 
account was more influential and more useful, 
being more free from dogma and more pervaded 
with the spirit of persuasiveness. 

THE DATE AND MOTIVE OF THE EPISTLE. 

The date of the writing of the epistle is uncer- 
tain and unimportant for our purposes. From 
the allusion to the fact that his readers bore 
the name of Christians " (2 : 7), the letter was 
probably written after that name was given in 
Antioch to the followers of our Lord (Acts 11 : 
26). But it must have been ;ome years after that 
event, and indeed even after the Council at Jeru- 
salem, A.D. 53 (Acts 15), as the presupposition 
of a wide knowledge of Christian doctrines and 
terms indicates. 

It was evidently not the intention of JAMES to 
address to his Hebrew-Christian brethren a letter 
on Christian doctrine. He was not discussing the 
nature of saving faith, but he was discussing and 
denouncing an unsaving faith, a reliance of many 
of his brethren on the fact that they were the 
children of Abraham, which made them feel that 
that was sufficient for salvation without those 
good works which are always the product of sav- 



26 



The Gospel of Cormnon Sense. 



ing faith. It seems absurd to suppose that James 
wrote to counteract the teaching of Paul. A 
critical examination of James's epistle does not 
reveal a single fact which suggests that the 
writer had in his mind any thought of anything 
that had proceeded from the pen of Paul. Indeed, 
there is no evidence that he had seen any of 
Paul's epistles, and very probably wrote his own 
before Paul's Epistle to the Romans was written 
(which was not until A. D. 60), certainly before it 
had gained any circulation among the early 
Christian churches, in which epistle Paul elabo- 
rately sets forth his doctrine of justification by 
faith. Indeed it would seem to be the object of 
James to bring his readers to such a living faith 
as is set forth by his brother Paul, "2. faith that 
worketh by love " (Gal. 5 : 6). 
~ The epistle is plainly meant to inculcate morals. 
The writer does not seek to reach this end by 
setting forth a systematic ethical treatise, but 
rather by warning his readers against such sins 
and errors as they would naturally fall into be- 
cause of their early Jewish and late Christian 
circumstances, and to exhort them to such a 
course of holy living as would justify them to 
themselves in showing that they really had such 
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as made them 
fruitful as well as unblamable. It was an effort 
to lift them off their sandy position and place 
them on a foundation of rock. Indeed in this 
epistle one is constantly reminded of the Ser- 



The Gospel of Coniuion Sense. 



27 



mon on the Mount, and the Apostle seems to 
have been a very close student of that wonderful 
discussion on Character delivered by his brother 
Jesus. These two sons of Mary were much alike 
in some mental characteristics, and the so-called 
Sermon on the Mount delivered to Jews and the 
Epistle of James delivered to Christians will ever 
remain the most valuable text-books on morals 
in possession of the world. 

THE PRESENT USE OF THE EPISTLE. 

Are they so broad, so catholic, so ecumenical, 
so free from the swaddling clothes of the world's 
infancy, so suited to man as man that nineteenth- 
century folk can have benefit from the study of 
them 1 We believe that they are, and that the 
Epistle of James especially, more than anything 
else in the New Testament, seems as if it might 
have been privately written A.D. 1888 for New York 
and London, for California and Germany; as if the 
writer had taken a tour of inspection among the 
synagogues and churches of our day, and written 
in kindly expostulation and exhortation, to turn 
his Jewish and Christian brethren away from their 
errors, and confirm them in a large, strong life of 
fidelity, and chastity, and charity. 

In that belief, and as much as possible in the 
spirit of James, we make a study of his epistle, and 
shall endeavor to draw from it the lesson needed 
by us amid the cares and perplexity, the engross- 
ments, the pleasures and the pressures of the 
present age. 



II. 



Introductory Matter of the Epistle. 

CHAPTER I., I-I2. 
THE SALUTATION TO HEBREW-CHRISTIANS. 
r^HE salutation bears the characteristics of 



James. It is terse, full, and rhetorical. 



''James, of God and of the Lord Jesus 
Christ the bond-servant, to the twelve tribes zvhich 
are in the dispersion, hail!' The collocation of 
the words shows a recognition of the faith under 
the two forms of Judaism and Christianity. All 
that was divine in Judaism, James still held as not 
being at all weakened by his faith in Jesus ; and 
his devotion to Jesus did not affect in the slight- 
est degree his devotion to the God of his fathers. 
Indeed, he seems to suggest the thought that no 
conscientious Jew who, in the spirit of his father 
Abraham, follows out the teachings of Moses 
and the prophets can fail to become finally a ser- 
vant of God by being a servant of that Jesus 
whom God has christened, anointed to be Lord, 
the ruler of the world. On the other hand no 
man can be a servant of that Jesus who is the 
Christ Lord without receiving all that is moral 
and religious in the monotheism set forth in 
the writings of Moses and the prophets as the 




The Gospel of Common Sense, 29 



sure basis of any growing spiritual life. A Chris- 
tian receives everything which gives divine in- 
struction and comfort to his Jewish brother. 
What had been necessary to spiritual culture in 
the earlier day, but had discharged its function, 
he does not hold binding as any part of the 
ritual or spirituality of true religion, but every 
intelligent and right-hearted Christian reveres 
those stars which shone before the sun arose. 
Having the antitype he has no need to depend 
wholly on the type ; having the fulfilment he has 
no need to live entirely on the prophecy for his 
spiritual growth, but he reverently studies the type 
and preserN/'es the prophecy, seeing that the con- 
stant comparison of the fulfilment with the pre- 
diction is a constant strengthening of his faith. 

It would really in our day seem to be a ques- 
tion whether any man who knows the Gospel can 
be a full and faithful servant of the God of 
Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, who is not 
at the same time a faithful and devoted servant of 
Jesus, God's anointed Ruler. On the other hand, 
how can a man be a full and faithful servant of 
Jesus, the Christ Lord, who is not devoted to the 
service of the God of the children of Israel, that 
God who anointed Jesus to be the world's Lord ? 
If the Israelitish religion be considered defective 
without that in the Christian faith for preparation 
of which the elder faith existed ; so, utterly 
emptied, not only of all power but of all life, 



30 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 



would be the Christian religion if deprived of at?.y 
of the spiritual elements which vitalized that 
religion which lifted Moses to the heights of God, 
and wrapt Isaiah in the flames of inspiration, and 
kindled in David the fires which melted in him 
the truth that has run molten and singing down 
the centuries. The ideal which we should all 
seek to attain is that which is expressed in the 
twin-name of Hebrew-Christian. Such was JAMES. 
A GREAT man's MODESTY. 
See the modesty of this great man. He had 
received the first thrill of his life in the womb 
which had held Him whom the world was to 
receive as the Son of God. He had played with 
the holy child Jesus in the house of Joseph and 
Mary, and down in the Nazareth streets close by 
the Fount of the Virgin. He had grown up 
under the spell of the matchless character of the 
wonderful brother whose life was made sublime 
and simple by the great work which He had to 
do. With Him James had climbed the heights 
above Nazareth, and descended the slopes into 
the plain below, and in long, deep, earnest talks 
had received into himself, under the eye of their 
pure and exalted mother, a formative element 
which told powerfully upon his own character. 
He had watched this elder brother's growth in 
stature and wisdom and grace, until the time He 
entered upon a ministry begun by the miracle at 
Cana of Galilee, at which James probably was 



The Gospel of Counnon Sense, 31 



present. He had endured all the intellectual 
perplexity which arose from knowing that Jesus 
was his brother just as the other sons of Mary 
were, so far as he could perceive, and yet had 
always had some exaltation, some spiritual ele- 
ment which made Him so divinely far apart while 
He was so humanly near. JAMES was probably 
married, and was not living with the Mother- 
Mary when Jesus was crucified. He had never 
given in his allegiance to Jesus as the Messiah, 
as the Lord of Humanity, as the Savior- of the 
world until that crucified Brother had been 
buried, had raised Himself from the dead, had 
shown Himself to Peter, then to the Twelve and 
then to five hundred disciples, and then to this 
brother, who had not believed on Him. This 
overwhelming interview had thoroughly con- 
verted James, and prepared him to be the pastor 
of the first Christian church in Jerusalem and the 
helper of all Christian people in all time to come. 
So he humbly calls himself, '*the bond-servant 
of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ." 

The title bond-servant " or slave " dis- 
tinguishes the bearer from that of hireling." 
It meant one who was ^' bound," not a mere 
wage-taker, but bound for life, so bound that his 
interests and his master's had become inseparably 
united, so that he could not be faithless to his mas- 
ter without injury to himself, and that the master's 
interest lay in taking care of the bond-servant. 



32 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



Now, from the devotedness of such service," says 
Bishop Bloomfield (on Romans i : i), ''it was 
applied to the service of God, and the term 
servant of God was applied first to Moses and 
Joshua, afterwards to the Apostles and the minis- 
ters of the Gospel in general, as in 2 Tim. 2 : 24, 
in both which last uses, it denotes one devoted to 
the spiritual service of Christ in His Gospel; and, 
therefore, indicates both the station and the de- 
votedness of the person to whom it is applied." 
Yet if James did have any thought of station," 
he certainly suggests it modestly. He makes no 
great claim of authority as coming from his 
station. He relies more upon the influence com- 
ing from his character. He claims nothing as 
the brother of the Lord," although he was 
commonly known in Christian circles by that 
appellation. 

THE GREETING. 

The greeting" is to be noticed. It comes at 
the beginning of the epistle as it does in the cir- 
cular letter which James sent to the churches at 
the close of the Council at Jerusalem, and it is in 
the same abbreviated form (Acts 1 5 : 23). Strictly 
trarr^lated the word means '*to be happy." ''I 
tell (you) to be happy " would be the full phrase. 

It occurs negatively in 2 John 10 : If any one 
Cometh unto you and bringeth not this teaching, 
receive him not into your house, and do not tell 
him to be happy." 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 



33 



The address is made to his Hebrew-Christian 
brethren of every part of the nationality, and so 
he calls them the ''twelve tribes." The frequent 
scatterings of the Jews seem to have wrought an 
obliteration of the tribal distinction, so that now 
it may be said that for about twenty centuries 
they have been without that distinction and with- 
out king or government, without temple and 
priest. But when the ten tribes were carried 
away some individuals had remained and some had 
returned. When Josiah undertook to purge Judah 
and Jerusalem, B.C. 628, they were still in the 
land, and recognized by their tribal relations, as 
it appears that the good young king carried his 
reformation to the cities of Manasseh, and 
Ephraim, and Simeon, even uiito Naphtali " (2 
Chron. 34 : 1-6). In the ninth verse of the same 
chapter, we learn that contributions were made 
to the temple-fund by Manasseh, Ephraim and 
'*all the remnant of Israel." In the Book of 
Ezra (6:21) mention is made of the children of 
Israel who had come again out of their captivity, 
and that at the dedication of the House of God 
there were offered ''for a sin-offering for all 
Israel, twelve he-goats, according to the nunvber 
of the tribes of Israel." That these persons for 
themselves took an interested part in the joyful 
solemnities appears from the statement (Ezra 8 : 
35) that ''the children of those that had been 
carried away, which were come out of the captiv- 



34 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 



ity, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel, 
twelve bullocks for all Israel," etc. This was B.C. 
457. But everywhere there were descendants of 
the original families of all the tribes, and Paul 
sympathized with the religious patriotism of 
James, as appears in the phrase occurring in his 
plea for himself before Agrippa, in which he speaks 
of our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day 
and night " (Acts 26 : 7). 

THE TRIALS OF LIFE : A WRONG THEORY. 

The writer lost no time with ceremonious pre- 
liminaries. The object for which he had under- 
taken the epistle was always before him. He 
knew that those to whom it was addressed were 
having a doubly hard life ; hard because they 
were Jews, and hard because they were Chris- 
tians. 

Life is not always easy to any, of whatever 
condition or fortune. And men increase the 
painfulness of living by undertaking life on a 
wrong theory : namely, the conception of the pos- 
sibility of making life free from trouble. They 
dream of this ; they plan for this ; they toil for 
this ; they are all disappointed. It is impracticable. 
After millions of failures in all the past, and the 
sight of failure in all lives visible to us, each man 
renews the eftbrts to accomplish the impossible. 
He might just as well seek to live without eat- 
ing or without breathing. In the present condi- 
tion of human society, no naan is born to be fre^ 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 35 



from trouble. On the contrary, all human beings 
are born to trouble as the birds fly upward. (This 
seems to be the meaning of Job 5, 7.) 

The metaphor of the birds is instructive. It is 
of a bird's nature to fly. The build of its body, 
with its adjusted apparatus, suggests flying. The 
law of heredity has transmitted to each bird the 
natural impulsion to fly. Resting is the inter- 
ruption of a bird's flying, not the contrary. Fly- 
ing is his rule ; walking or resting, his exception. 
The fish was made to swim, as the bird was made 
to fly, and man was '*born to trouble." There 
are intervals. In the life of each of us, as we 
have passed out of a great trouble, it has seemed 
as if no more would come. But another has 
come ; and our lives are spent in being in some 
trouble, or in passing from one trouble to an- 
other. 

If there be any exception to that rule — if 
there be any man or woman on the planet past 
thirty, who has had no troubles, I have never seen 
that person or heard that person's name. Have 
you } 

Why, then, should we increase the difficulties 
of human life by adding to its natural limitations 
the attempt to reach the unattainable } They 
live the less difficult lives who early adjust them- 
selves to the natural fact that trouble is to be 
the normal condition of life. They prepare 
themselves for it. They fortify themselves by 



36 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



philosophy and religion to endure the inevitable. 
Then every hour free from trouble is so much 
clear gain. But to him who adopts the other 
theory — and who does not ? — every trouble is so 
much clear loss. The man in trouble, the fish in 
water, the bird in air : that is the law ; why not 
accept it ? 

That fact need not discourage us. It does not 
take from our dignity, nor from our growth, nor 
from our final happiness. The painter cannot 
have his picture glowing on the canvas by 
merely designing it, nor the sculptor transmute 
his ideal into marble by a wish. The one must 
take all the trouble of drawing and coloring, and 
the other that of chiselling and polishing. It is 
no necessary discouragement to a boy that he 
must be under tutors, and must go through the 
trouble and discipline of school days, even if he 
be a prince. It is the law. That answers all. It 
need scarcely be added that for any success we 
must conform to the law. Our whole human ex- 
perience has taught that lesson. I am not re- 
sponsible for the law. I did not make it. I can- 
not alter it ; most certainly I would not abrogate 
it, unless I be a born and unchangeable fool. 
There are only two courses left. I can obey the 
law, and thus adjust myself to my physical and 
spiritual environment, or I can resist the law, 
and thus do for myself what the earthen pitcher 
would do for itself if it dashed itself against the 
gtone curb of the well 



The Gospel of Coimnon Sense. 37 



This sure view of life is not pessimistic. It 
detracts nothing from the theory of the harmony 
of the universe, any more than the shades of 
color or the parts of music detract, the former 
from the harmony of the picture, or the latter 
from the harmony of the tune. It is a very un- 
true estimate of life to regard it as successful in 
proportion to the absence of trouble. 

SPECIAL SOURCES OF TROUBLE. 

The men to whom James wrote this epistle 
had several sources of trouble. They were exiled 
from their birth-place, or the birth-place of their 
fathers ; they were exiled from their church- 
home ; their Christian profession naturally ex- 
cluded them from the sympathies of their former 
co-religionists ; their own natural attachment to 
their old forms of worship and methods of ex- 
pressing their earnest beliefs distinguished them 
so from their new Gentile fellow-Christians that 
they did not find perfect sympathy there; and, 
as Jews, they were exposed to all the depressions 
which came to them from their Roman conquer- 
ors on account of their nationality, and as Chris- 
tians, to all the suppressions attempted by the 
same civil power on account of their religion. 
These they had in addition to the troubles which 
naturally fell to them as men. 

The good James saw all this. There was noth. 
ing vague and dreamy in him. He took direct 
and clear views of life. He knew how their con- 



38 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

dition of suffering would have a tendency to de- 
press his scattered brethren. He would strength- 
en that he might cheer them. He knew that 
any other method of dealing would be of no per- 
manent value to them. The very opening of his 
address is a vigorous tonic ; and his whole epis- 
tle, written in the most beautiful Greek found in 
the New Testament, is of an epigrammatic style 
of thought uttered in sparkling language. 

What was good for them must be good for us, 
so far as it goes to form character by stimulating 
our ethical qualities. In these pages it is pro- 
posed to give a study to this epistle, not a critical 
examination, not a specially philosophical analy- 
sis, but a plain, common-sense inquiry into the 
meaning of the teaching of the most practical 
of all the early propagators of the teaching of 
Jesus. 

JOY IN TRIALS. 
Immediately after his salutation, the writer 
breaks upon his readers almost as with a shout, 
"'My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers 
temptations'' He puts himself into sympathetic 
communication with them at once. My breth- 
ren'^' he calls them ; as though he would remind 
them that what he was about to say was not a 
lecture delivered by a stranger, by a cold profes- 
sor of ethical science, but a heart-talk by a brother 
in tribulation who, in his own experience, had 
acquired ample knowledge of the kind of sorrow 
which often burdened their hearts. 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 3^ 

He strikes a high key in the beginning. All 
joy! " Why, most of them seemed to have almost 
no joy. '^Divers trials" they had: that was a 
condensed statement of their normal circum- 
stances. Now he prefers to show them that 
those divers trials, coming upon them from differ- 
ent quarters, attacking them on different sides, 
could rationally be counted by them as all 

WHAT IS TEMPTATION ? 
It is to be observed that temptations " as the 
word is rendered in the Common Version does 
not mean seduction to evil. In the 13th verse of 
the first chapter, JAMES writes : " Let no man 
say when he is tempted, 'I am te^npted of God ; * 
for God cannot be tempted of evil, neither temp- 
teth He any man." And James knew that his 
brother Jesus had taught a prayer to His dis- 
ciples, a prayer oftener repeated perhaps than any 
other form of address to God in any language, a 
prayer in which we are to ask the Father in 
heaven to '*lead us not into temptation," that is, 
providentially to bring to bear upon us such in- 
fluences as shall lead us away from seduction to 
evil. 

When ye fall into divers trials !" The word 
here must mean just what it means in the twelfth 
verse of this chapter: ''Blessed is the man that 
endureth temptation, for when he is tried, he shall 
receive the crown of life." 



46 The Gospel of Cominon Sense, 



Very carefully does the writer, by his choice of 
language, guard against any mistake. He ex- 
horts no man, Jew or Gentile, Christian or in- 
fidel or reprobate, to rejoice in trouble brought 
upon himself by his sins or his imprudences. In 
the very constitution of things, the man that has 
done wrong must suffer ; when the punishment 
comes he has little ground for rejoicing, but much 
for abasement and sorrow; and well is it for that 
man if his sorrow worketh in him repentance. So 
Paul wrote to the Corinthians (2 Cor. 7 : 9): Now 
I rejoice not that ye were made sorry, but that ye 
were made sorry unto repentance." 

In this world trouble will come to all. The 
very processes of nature by which we and our 
children are brought into the world and carried 
out of the world, the necessary results of our affec- 
tions, which give such charm and glow to life, all 
bring us unavoidable trouble. Probably the most 
of our troubles, and greatest, come through our 
affections. Adam and Eve loved Cain and Abel. 
When one of the brothers slew the other, the 
bereaved parents had double trouble. They had 
lost a child. In proportion to the goodness of 
that son, his obedience and filial love, was the 
poignancy of the anguish of bereavement. That 
was a great trouble. It was the first death of 
a human being. But there was a greater trouble. 
The loss of the slain lay not so heavy on the 
hearts of the first parents as the guilt of the 



The Gospel of Coimnon Sense. \\ 



slayer. On one side was a loss, on the other a 
crime. They had a son who was dead and an- 
other who was a murderer. 

Who can estimate the trouble brought upon 
husbands by the wrong-doing of their wives, upon 
wives by their husbands, upon parents by their 
children, and upon children by their parents } If 
all the sorrow which comes upon men by the 
wrong-doing of others could instantly be removed 
from the world, how immensely the trouble of 
the race would be mitigated. The world would 
seem to resemble heaven. Indeed, the Sacred 
Scriptures represent the escape from the world as 
an entrance upon the state where ''the wicked 
cease from troubling." 

When these troubles are upon men they may 
be made seductions to evil or trials of character. 
The work of the evil spirit is to render them 
temptations in the bad sense. Our Heavenly 
Father uses them as trials. The men who have 
no faith in the God of Abraham, the God and 
Father of Jesus Christ, have no right to rejoice 
either when they bring temptations upon them- 
selves by their vices or fall into temptations in 
the ordinary process of affairs. There is a sorrow 
of the world " which worketh death " (2 Cor. 
7 : 10). But Abraham and James, and all others 
who are Israelites, and true Christians, and 
most especially those who, like the persons to 
whom this epistle was addressed, were Christian 



4^ The Gospel of Common Sense. 



Israelites, have great reason to count it all 
joy'' when they ^^fall into divers" troubles, which 
the Heavenly Father makes ^'divers [or versi- 
colored] trials " and so manifold blessings. So 
true is it that while the grace of God, like a celes- 
tial alchemy, extracts only good from evil, the 
malignity of Satan, like an infernal magic, draws 
evil out of good. 

GROUNDS OF REJOICING. 

Why should Christians rejoice when they **fall 
into divers temptations" ? 

god's PROVIDENCE. 

Because it comes in the providence of God, for 
which the servants of God have no responsibility. 
They have not ordered the affairs of the universe, 
and they have not violated that order. There is 
no fault on either side. There could not be a 
world so good as this, and be a world in which* 
there were no trouble. That has been settled 
by the believer once for all. He cannot join the 
cry of the rebellious heart when it asks, in pas- 
sionate anger, Why does God take my beloved 
to the grave } Why does God allow this 
trouble to come upon me 1 " He does not ask 
for a constant interference upon the part of God, 
with the operations which He has set at work in 
a universe conceived in infinite love, and pro- 
duced in infinite wisdom, and sustained by the 
incessant exercise of infinite power. There has 
been no caprice in the Immortal Father, and no 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 43 

sin in the mortal child. Walking- on the path of 
duty, the Father's child has fallen into trouble. 
He counts it all joy that he did not make the 
trouble, and that his Father knew that it found 
him on the path of duty. The servant of our 
Lord Jesus, the child of Abraham, should take as 
a governing principle of his life, the sentiment 
that a grain of guilt is heavier than ten tons of 
trouble. 

A devout and intelligent soul knows that God 
his Father is not an unconcerned observer of the 
movements of the universe. Having fashioned 
that orderly universe. He governs it on certain 
principles ; but He has never surrendered the 
government of that universe, or turned it loose, 
to go of itself. While certain effects come from 
certain causes, even feeble men can control those 
effects, and combine them and use them as causes 
for other effects. Much more can God. His 
general providence is seen in the operation of the 
laws He has set for the government of things. 
A part of those laws may be scientifically ascer- 
tained by His children who have pleasure in 
His works." But who knows them all ? If there 
be some laws of matter and of mind which it is 
impossible for human beings to discover, will not 
God reveal those also ? Will He not, in all con- 
ditions and circumstances, use what He Himself 
has produced, so as to carry forward in the best 
way the highest education of His child } The 



44 



The Gospel of Common Seitse. 



true son and servant of the Lord believes that 
his Heavenly Father adapts His special providence 
to the particular case of each of His children. 
He may not interfere to stop the operation of 
the laws He has wisely ordained ; but He will 
bring other laws to operate upon the results so 
as to benefit His children. He may not keep the 
fire from burning a heroic saint who rushes in to 
pluck a sinner from the flaming house ; but He 
will bring to that saint from his torturing wound 
and ugly scar a glory princes cannot gain from 
crowns. 

THE EFFECT OF TRIAL. 

There is great comfort and often much joy in 
reflecting upon the effect of all the discipline of 
trouble if rightly used. It is the development of 
that in man which not only distinguishes him 
from the lower animals, but is that which is the 
loftiest and most ennobling of human capabilities, 
namely faith. To be able to perceive, to com- 
pare, to judge, to reason, to remember, to fancy, 
to imagine, these are wonderful intellectual en- 
dowments. But a much greater faculty than any 
one of them and than they all, is that faculty 
which enables us to receive and to cling to the 
truth ; and that is faith. What were all others 
without this } Of what use would my senses be if 
I could not have faith in the correctness of their 
report } Of what use my logical understanding 
if I could have no faith in conclusions produced 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 45 

by its processes ? Without faith it is plainly im- 
possible to have any physical science or any 
science of the mind. Without faith it is impos- 
sible to have any system or any practical life. 
No wonder then that it has been said that with- 
out faith it is impossible to please God," seeing 
that without faith it is imipossible to please either 
our fellow-men or ourselves. 

Then, what a man most needs is the certainty 
that his faith is genuine. This can be ascertained 
only by some such process as that which an as- 
sayer employs when he strives to discover the 
ingredients of any substance. The testing of 
gold ore, for instance, is a process involving 
several mixtures, several vessels, and several uses 
of great heat. It is important to know what pro- 
portion of gold there is in the ore. There may 
be other things in combination ; but the assayer 
is intent on finding how much of the ore is gold. 
The ore is more valuable as there is more gold 
in it. There may be silver, there may be lead, 
there may be copper, and these are useful metals; 
but it is the gold which gives the chief value to 
the ore. So it is faith which gives chief value to 
any man. Great imagination may make a great 
poet ; great logical powers, a great philosopher; 
great faculty for observation, a great scientist; but 
nothing makes a great man but great faith. 

Now afflictions are trials of one's faith. JAMES 
uses the word which signifies a test," and a test 



46 The Gospel of Co^nmon Sense. 



applied in such a way as to produce proof of the 
correctness of the result. The argument of the 
author is : Since ye know — which we take for 
granted — that afflictions are trials, [tests] of faith, 
and since ye also know that it is this testing of your 
faith which produces endurance (v. 3). The test 
takes other things away and leaves the faith ; not 
only that, but it leaves also the proof that it is 
genuine faith. 

''perfect" and ''entire." 

This endurance, which the writer seems to con- 
sider the finally desirable thing, may have two 
meanings : it may signify the being able to bear 
whatever is laid on us by our Lord, and which 
we call patience, or it may signify permanence of 
character. The latter seems the fixed meaning. 
Before the blast the dead leaves are driven, or the 
waves on the surface of the ocean are tossed, but 
the tree has endurance and remains ; the ocean 
has endurance and remains. It is this per7nanence 
of character which is desirable above all things. 
The earlier trials are the first weights imposed 
upon character. They tend to give compactness. 
There is a line of density below which no sub- 
stance can be pressed. Every additional pound 
of weight causes that which is pressed to approach 
that compactness which no additional burden 
can increase. 

This completed compactness the writer calls 
the "perfect work" of endurance, The sooner a 



The Gospel of Coininon Sense, 



47 



man reaches this effect of trouble, the sooner is 
he at the point where no trouble can ever work 
him any harm. He is perfect and entire." 

The words " perfect " and entire " are not sy- 
nonymous. There is a difference quite worth no- 
ticing : the first being properly applied to what 
has reached its end — that which has reached 
its complete development — in the case of a 
tree, to that which is full grown ; the second, 
to that which has all that belongs to it — in the 
case of an heir, to one who has obtained the last 
item of the estate to which he is entitled. 
Through this whole letter we are to recollect that 
it was first addressed to Hebrew-Christians. 

The writer of this epistle did not understand 
Judaism and Christianity as two religions. He 
had come to believe that Judaism was not per- 
fected until it developed into Christianity ; that 
was the intention of Judaism, which had been a 
tree in process of development, and not complete 
until it bore the flowers and fruits of Christianity. 
The Israelite who had developed into a Christian 
was '^perfect." While he remained only a Jew, 
he was heir to a vast estate, upon a large and 
rich portion of which he had not entered until he 
became a Christian ; then he was entire." 

To us perhaps the most practical distinction in 
the meaning of the words may point to a differ- 
ence in faith and practice, in the inner spiritual 
life and outer active life. The result of all trials 



48 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 



should be to increase that perfect faith which 
works by love and makes the life entire. 

When the writer adds ''lacking nothing," '''in 
nothing left behindy' pointing by the word he 
employs to a race, perhaps he would intimate to 
us, that there might be danger of misinterpreting 
what he had written so as to signify that where a 
Hebrew had developed into a Christian there was 
nothing more to do. He knew that however far 
the racers had run, the race was not won while 
there remained any space uncovered. The disci- 
pline should prepare us to make further progress. 
The Christian individual and the Christian Church 
must each grow in grace and in the knowledge 
of our Lord and Savior. The result of all past 
discipline from pain, is to prepare us to trust 
more, to learn more, to love more. To stop run- 
ing is to lose the race ; to stop growing is to 
begin to decay. 

THE GIVING GOD. 
The writer seems to hear some of his readers 
say : ''But it requires much wisdom to live thus 
in the midst of trials." Very true ! But the 
supply is at hand. ^' Ask of God'' If any of 
you come short of wisdom let him ask of the giving 
Godr What an encouraging epithet, the giving 
God," — the God who is accustomed to give, 
who is known amongst men and angels as THE 
GIVER. And that there may be the utmost en- 
couragement, James gives three characteristics 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 49 



of His giving: (i) It is universal, (2) it is abun- 
dant, and (3) it is unselfish. How exceedingly 
encouraging this is. 

One may say, ''I am so insignificant;" an- 
other, I am so sinful;" another, ''I have so 
little faith ; " another, I am so hard." 

But you are a human being, and He gives to all. 
But I am so fearfully lacking, my need of 
wisdom is so great. If I had any sense what- 
ever, I might apply to Him." But, He ''giveth 
liberally." He longs to have great things asked 
of Him. Go to little men for little things. It i^" 
as easy for a great man to do a great thing, a* 
for a small man to do a small thing. God, the 
Father, King of the world, may be asked for 
the largest gifts, since no giving can possibly 
render Him poorer. John Newton has this 
thought in one of his hymns : 

'•Thou art coming to a King, 
Large petitions with thee bring : 
For His grace and power are such 
None can ever ask too much." 

A humane monarch once said, ''The greatest 
advantage of being a king is, that the king has 
the power to make so many happy." The ad- 
vantage which God has over all His children — ■ 
even earthly monarchs — is that He has more 
power to make more people happy. 



* Acts 17 : 25, "He giveth to all life and breath and all 
things." 



50 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



The unselfishness of the Divine Giver is seen 
in that He never upbraids." Human givers are 
so interested in their part of any giving transac- 
tion that a much-solicited person is apt to do or 
say something which shall remind the receiver of 
his obligation, and to make former gifts a reason 
for withholding that which is now sought ; and, 
more especially, if good use has not been made of 
former benefactions, to upbraid the ungrateful or 
thriftless receiver. Even human parents some- 
times do this. It requires the greatest nobility 
to rise above such inclinations. Our Father never 
upbraids. He never points to the misuse we have 
made of any former gifts. He never tires of giv- 
ing, and so He never says to a penitent at His 
feet : What, you here again ! Can you never 
be satisfied } Where is the blessing I gave you 
last week t There seems to be no hour of the 
day or night in which you are not soliciting 
something.'* No ! He never says such things. 
He is so delighted to have us ask that He would 
have us more ashamed of not coming to Him for 
needed wisdom than for any other fault or sin. 
WHAT IS WISDOM } 

The wisdom we are to seek may be that wis- 
dom which will enable us to turn every trouble 
to a good account. He is a great merchant who 
can make a great commercial disaster the foun- 
dation of a fortune. He is a great general who 
can wrench victory from defeat. He is a wise 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 51 



man who grows stronger in the midst of troubles 
which break weaker men. 

Or, it may be that exalted nobility of spirit 
which James describes (3 : 17) as produced by the 
wisdom which cometh down from above. 

Or, it may be that same religiousness which is 
named in Holy Scripture as the fear of the 
Lord,'* which fear the Psalmist (iii : 10) calls 
**the beginning of wisdom," and (112 : i) de- 
scribes as great delight in the commandments of 
the Lord. Still earlier, in the Book of Job (18 : 
28) it had been written : Behold, the fear of the 
Lord, that is wisdom ; and to depart from evil is 
understanding." 

EVERY TRUE PRAYER ANSWERED. 

How positive is the assurance of an answer to 
this prayer for wisdom ! You may pray for a 
change of circumstances, for more land or money, 
or for success in some undertaking, or for deliv- 
erance from some trouble ; and the Father may 
see that it is better to leave you just as you are, 
and answer your prayer in some other way. In 
some way for good every true prayer is answered. 
There could not possibly be an unanswered 
prayer without something greater than a miracle 
— without a revolution of the whole system of 
the universe. Until attraction repels, and heat 
makes cool, and effects produce their own causes, 
there cannot be an unanswered prayer, because 
God has ordained the connection between the 



52 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 



real prayer, intellectually meant and heartily felt 
prayer, with the production of some spiritual 
good. The law of gravity is not more sure in its 
existence, or more unerring in its action, than 
the law of spiritual prayer. But, as in physical, 
so in spiritual operations, the result does not al- 
ways come in the anticipated mode, but it comes 
somehow. The law of equivalents is unfailing. 
But there is one prayer which we know the Fa- 
ther will answer. There is no '^perchance" here. 
We need not say, If it please Thee," as we do 
when we are praying for the recovery of some 
beloved person who is sick. It may be better 
that the sick should die. It was expedient that 
Jesus should depart. So, while His disciples 
prayed and hoped that He might stay, He went. 
But their prayers for His remaining were an- 
swered with a blessing greater than the continu- 
ing of His bodily presence with them could have 
been. There are no conditions in asking God for 
wisdom. He that seeks" it ''shall find.*' The 
petitioner may present his prayer as a claim, and 
demand the answer of this special prayer as the 
fulfilment of God's special promise. 

All the more may he do so, because this wis- 
dom is something no man can have by inherit- 
ance, and no man acquire by any study under the 
best teachers and amidst the best circumstances, 
and no man can impart to his fellow-man. For 
this wisdom we must ''ask of God'^ 



The Gospel of Conn no n Sense. 



53 



But the prayer for it must be in faith. The soul 
of the petitioner must be in the attitude of 
certain expectancy. The heart must be Hfted 
up with the eyes. This can be done with perfect 
simplicity if the prayer be for that which God 
has surely promised. The petitioner can then go 
from his house knowing that it has been done, 
just as certainly as he can know in any other 
way that anything else has been done ; just as 
the telegraph operator knows that his message 
has gone, after he has touched the keys. There 
is no question further ; there are no contingen- 
cies. When he does not know what God's will 
is, he says, If it be Thy will." But he does not 
say that when God has stated in advance what 
His will is. 

DOUBTS NEUTRALIZE. 
Of course no blessing comes if the man doubts. 
God could not give in such a case, because the 
man could not receive. When the Father has 
promised His wisdom, a special spiritual gift, how 
can it rule me if I close all the avenues of my 
spirit by my unbelief ? The object of the gift is to 
improve the relations between the Father and 
the child, but manifestly that cannot begin to be 
done if the child believes that the Father is a 
liar, or even if he fail to have the most perfect 
faith in the honor and good intentions of the 
Father. He must not doubt. If he is not will- 
ing to give God frnsf, how can he expect God 
to give him wisdom ? 



54 The Gospel of Comnio7i Sense, 



For a doubting man is like a sea-surface. He 
is superficial. He lies open to all disturbing in- 
fluences, as the ocean does on its surface, on 
which every wind plays, driving it forward and 
piling it into waves. Such is what James calls a 
double-souled man. There are few greater mis- 
fortunes than to be thus between two natures. 
Instability destroys the value of all that is good 
in a man. Unstable as water, thou shalt not 
excel," said the patriarch Jacob to one of his sons. 

A two-souled man is unsettled ; ''unstable in 
all waysT His opinions are fluctuating ; and so 
are his sentiments. Sometimes he is repenting 
of his sins, and sometimes he is repenting of his 
repentance. Sometimes the importance of the 
future overwhelms him, and sometimes he feels 
that nothing is worth thinking of but the present. 
Such instability of sentiment must unsettle the 
believer. The man is sometimes as serene as 
a May morning, and sometimes as sweeping as 
a cyclone. You can never know how he will 
receive you, or how he will behave under cer- 
tain circumstances. His instability imparts its 
changefulness to his countenance ; while he is 
looking one way, his soul has gone another. 
His speech is ambiguous, his tones of voice 
wavering, his utterance now very rapid and now 
very slow. Sometimes he answers off-hand and 
without reflection, and then he requires so much 
time to consider, that the opportunity for speech 



Tlic Gospel of Comnion Sense, 55 



has passed. He is untrustworthy in every de- 
partment of life. That man ""can not'' receive 
anything of the Lord. He cannot hold his hand 
long enough to have anything placed therein. 
SPECIFIC FORMS OF TROUBLE. 

From a general discourse upon the variegated 
trials to which his brethren were exposed, and 
the design and joyful consummation of those trials, 
James passes to specific cases, in which he gives 
specific exhortations and comforts. 

The conditions of life are changeful. The poor 
may become rich, and the rich become poor ; the 
lowly may be raised to the highest station, and 
the loftiest of mortals be cast to the ground. If 
a man have the Christian faith he may rejoice in 
either position, and may rejoice in passing from 
the one to the other. 

And so James says to his scattered parishion- 
ers and also to us, Let the brother of low degree 
rejoice in his exaltation, and the rich brother in his 
humbling^ beca^ise he perishes like the fioiver of 
the grass : for the sun rose with a scjrching wind 
and withered the grass, and the flower fell and the 
beauty of its appear arte e perished ; thus also the 
rich man in his ways shall fadeP (vv. 9, 10, 11.) 
FROM LOW TO HIGH. 

There are two senses in which the first clause 
may be taken, one of which seems much higher 
than the other. Let us first take that which is 
lower, namely, a poor brother passing into 



56 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 



wealth. It is always to be remembered that he 
is our brother, no matter how little of this world's 
goods he may possess or control. It is a proper 
habit of thought to think always of all the poor 
as being our brothers. It is easy enough to 
claim kinship with the rich, but sometimes em- 
barrassing to recognize consanguinity with the 
poor. But it is always noble to do so, even if the 
prospect be that our brother shall never accu- 
mulate any property. If it were not noble, even 
if it were not right, it would be prudent, as a 
man's financial condition never is an indication of 
his moral character, and as that financial condi- 
tion may at any moment be suddenly and greatly 
changed. Emerson says, '^Man was born to be 
rich, or inevitably grows rich by the use of his 
faculties, by the union of thought with nature. 
Property is an intellectual production. The 
game requires coolness, right reasoning, prompt- 
ness and patience in the players. Cultivated 
labor drives out brute labor." 

Sometimes a great accession of wealth comes 
suddenly, by the death of some rich kinsman, or 
a combination of circumstances which gives to a 
man's investments an unexpected increase of 
value. In this latter case he has wrought better 
than he knew. Let any man who has faith in 
God rejoice when this occurs. Let no man re- 
joice at such accession of riches if he be not the 
Lord's servant. Rich and ungodly — a double 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 57 



hell-rope," exclaims Hedinger. But the good 
may rejoice because it has come to him in the 
providence of God. He has not set his heart 
inordinately upon it. It has come in the proper 
use of his faculties and opportunities. 

Let him rejoice. Poverty has its trials as well 
as riches. He has endured the former, let him 
rejoice that he may now endure the latter. He 
has had the whole of the good effect of poverty, 
and now he is to have his discipline varied. He 
has suffered God's will, now he may do that will. 
He has been trained in the virtues which are pas- 
sive, now he is to be trained in those which are 
active. He has often criticised the rich for not 
being more widely beneficent. Now, he has op- 
portunity to set them an example, seeing that he 
has come into their rank, and has their oppor- 
tunities. Yes, let him rejoice. He may not be 
able to do more good than he did in his former 
position ; but he can do other good. But let him 
be careful, lest he begin to rejoice in the fact 
that he has now reached an estate in which he 
can gratify both in himself and in his family the 
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride 
of life." But if he receive his wealth as a faithful 
and humble steward of his Lord, he may rejoice 
that his one talent has been made five. 

FROM HIGH TO LOW. 
Oh, yes," says some one, it is quite easy for 
the poor brother to rejoice in his exaltation ; but 



58 The Gospel of Coinrnon Sense, 



how about the other brother ? He has been 
brought low — well, let him also rejoice. 

Has he employed his riches faithfully and well ? 
Has he not made any of it to be filthy lucre ? 
Has he used it as his Lord would have him use 
it ? Then there can be no regrets. If it had 
remained with him, he would have continued the 
same course of conduct. There may be some 
Satan who said of him as was said of Job, Doth 
Job serve God for nought ? " Some bitter soul 
may have found his conduct so perfectly con- 
sistent that that could not be criticised, and so 
has said : ^*Oh, yes ; it is very easy for hi7n to 
serve God ; he has all that heart could wish ; he 
never had any financial cares ; he never has to 
rack his brain to find where the next meal is to 
come from." God's grace is counted for nothing 
by such an observer. Now, the formerly rich 
brother can glorify God by showing that divine 
grace can sustain him as well in narrow and poor 
limits as it had done in large and wealthy places. 
Let the reduced brother rejoice. 

Perhaps he has misused his wealth. Perhaps be- 
yond a good and liberal living for himself and his 
family he has pampered them and hurt himself, 
and acquired such a love of gold as shuts out the 
love of God. He may have spent on himself 
what was meant for mankind. He may have 
been accumulating that which would have proved 
the ruin of his children. 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 59 



Let the faithful as well as the unfaithful broth- 
er who has been brought from riches to pov^erty, 
rejoice ; because (i) the change occurring in the 
providence of God, must be best for him ; because 
(2) the ties that bound him to this world have 
been lessened and loosened ; because (3) he has 
been relieved of a great responsibility ; and be- 
cause (4) in no case has he been robbed by the 
Lord, but in many senses he has been relieved 
by the Lord. 

A HIGHER THOUGHT. 

All this is a consideration of this passage on 
its lower ground of meaning. But there is mani- 
festly a higher thought suggested, and one which 
probably was in the mind of Ja:sIES, as well as 
that which we have been considering. It is this : 

My brother, you are a Hebrew-Christian. You 
are a child of Abraham and a servant of Je- 
hovah's Christ. You are of a low degree of 
glory, according to the world's estimation. You 
have no high political or social position, and 
you have no great wealth. But, yours is an ex- 
alted life. You are a child of Abraham and 
brother of Jesus. You have a light not ''seen 
on sea or land"; an inner spiritual capability of 
discernment. You have also a spiritual power 
by which you are able to beat down Satan under 
your feet. You have a divine companionship, 
since Jehovah's Christ has promised that He 
will never leave you nor forsake you. You are 



6o The Gospel of Common Sense, 



now immortal ; you have received that eternal 
life which is the gift of Jehovah through Jesus 
His Christ. When all the thrones, and crowns, 
and sceptres, and purples of all the monarchs 
now in power upon the face of the earth shall 
have gone to common dust, you will be reigning 
with Jehovah's Anointed in a kingdom which is 
not of this world. O brother of low degree, re- 
joice in your exaltation. To this great height 
you have been raised by your Christian faith. 
Your worldly position may always be low, but 
no power can deprive you of that spiritual exal- 
tation which they have, and only they, whose life 
is hid with Christ in God. 

THE FAITHLESS POOR CANNOT REJOICE. 
The poor who have no faith, who do not belong 
to the brotherhood of God's spiritual family, have 
no reason to rejoice. While poverty is no dis- 
grace, it certainly is no honor. It is a very great 
mistake to suppose that there is anything either 
ennobling or sanctifying in poverty. There are 
those who seem to believe that they must be 
happy in the next world because they have had 
so hard a time in this ! But this is a grievous 
mistake. Afflictions make a man worse unless 
they be properly received and used. They work 
destruction of a sinner's peace and the degrada- 
tion of his character. But, to a spiritual child of 
Abraham, brought into the family by Jesus the 
Christ, his affliction is light," and momentary," 



Tlie Gospel of Common Sense, 6i 



and working " for him more and more exceed- 
ingly an eternal weight of glory, while he is look- 
ing not at the things which are seen, but at the 
things which are not seen " (2 Cor. 4 : 17). 

THE FAITHLESS RICH CANNOT REJOICE. 

In the same spirit James addresses his rich 
brother, who is a Christian Israelite. If he were 
a sinner he would have no ground of rejoicing 
that his coffers were full, his money past count 
and his credit measureless. With all these, his 
separation from God, his lowness of character, and 
his certainty of final wreck, would take from him 
every ground of joy. Great riches are perilous. 
It has always been hard for a rich man to enter 
into the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 19 : 23). Such 
a one never has entered that kingdom without 
God's special help of grace. Paul said (i Tim. 
6:9), ^*they that determine to be rich fall into 
ensnaring temptations and many senseless and 
ruinous longings, such as drown men in des- 
truction and loss." That always takes place 
when he makes up his mind deliberately that he 
will be rich, that to that end all other things 
shall yield ; personal culture, domestic enjoy- 
ment, public duties, being forced to stand aside 
until that end be reached. 

But even if a man have not made that end 
paramount, if he have come to his great wealth 
by legitimate means or by inheritance, riches 
have the effect to make him self-dependent in a 



62 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



way which draws his faith from God, and self-ex- 
ultant in a way which draws his love from his 
fellow-men. 

Such a man should rejoice when he becomes a 
Christian, because the spirit of Christ which is in 
him will adorn his life with the beauty of humil- 
ity, which is never so lovely as when seen in those 
whose condition militates against this grace. It 
will keep him from so fixing his affections upon 
material things as to draw him from spiritual 
culture. It will hold him to such a state of mind 
that if the summons come it will not tear him 
with anguish to part from that which he has 
made too large a part of his life. It will con- 
form his life to that of our Master, who, though 
He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that 
we through His poverty might become rich (2. 
Cor. 8 : 9). He should rejoice in that religious 
faith which leads him to use the perishing prop- 
erties of earth so as to transmute them into the 
enduring riches of eternity. 

THE FAITHFUL RICH. 

To his brethren," to those who are in the 
faith, and are rich in that state of spiritual hu- 
mility into which they have been brought by 
the Gospel does James offer this ground of re- 
joicing : that they are delivered from the anx- 
ieties which torment other rich men, men who 
are never certain of retaining their earthly pos- 
sessions ; and those are the only riches such 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 63 



men have. They are no more secure of their 
position than the flowers of the fields. The very 
great suddenness of the change is indicated 
by the tenses James employed. They had seen 
such flowers in all their morning glory. Sudden- 
ly, after the sun had risen, there had come a hot 
wind from the desert, and the beautiful flowers 
had fallen dishevelled to the ground. So famil- 
iar is the sight, that in all literature it has made 
a favorite figure with which to set forth the in- 
stability of earthly riches. 

James adds another, a figure employed by the 
Greek poet ^schylus, that of the drying up of a 
stream. The life of a rich man is like a flowing 
stream, which runs until the hot land through 
which it flows, drinks and drinks its waters, un- 
til the stream is dried up. Then all is gone. 

Now, the believer, who in his riches is leading 
a holy, humble life, and steadily employing his 
wealth as the Master would have it, knows 
that he has a house not made with human hands, 
imperishable, secured in the heavens. (2 Cor. 
5:1.) If money, land, and other properties go, 
there abide with him the true riches which moth 
and rust cannot corrupt, and which thieves- can- 
not steal. 

We shall have frequent occasion to trace re- 
semblances between the spoken words of Jesus 
and the written words of his brother JAMES. 
This is the first : Jesus (Matt. 5 : 3) said Blessed 



64 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 



are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of 
the heavens." James wrote, *'Let the brother of 
low degree of glory — let him shout — in his high 
estate." 

HAPPINESS IN TRIALS. 

Then, as if summing up in v. 12, JAMES states 
his theme — the happiness of such as show endur- 
ance in temptation — Happy the man who endures 
temptation, for being approved, he shall receive the 
crown of the life which the Lord has promised to 
those who love Him!' 

There are four possible experiences in regard 
to the trials of life, (i) They may fail of that 
which may be their best result. We may have 
the troubles of life — indeed, we must have them 
— and yet we may fail of the discipline. (2) They 
may be made seductions to evil and yielded to. 
(3) They may be suffered just as brutes suffer 
pain. (4) They may be endured." Blessed is 
the man who has this last experience, who ac- 
cepts the troubles of life as trials, who endures 
them, going on his way of duty as speedily in the 
storm as in the sunshine, obeying the injunction, 
''Let those who weep be as though they wept 
not." These are the blessed ones. There is no 
blessing for the untried man, as there is no cur- 
rency for the unstamped bullion ; for the metal, 
however precious, which is not marked so as to 
show that it has been tested and is now approved. 
There is no blessing for the man who yields to 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 65 



temptation or fails under trial. There is no bless- 
ing to him who has brutal insensibility to the 
pains of trial, or unconsciousness of the process, 
as the anvil is unconscious of the blows of the 
hammer. But there is a blessing for the man 
who knows what is going forward, who under- 
stands the intent, and appreciates the object, and 
desires the result of the process. For when he 
has become approved, after the testing and by 
reason of the testing, he shall receive the crown 
of the lifer 

It does not seem that this brilliant writer used 
his words carelessly. He does not say diadem," 
which signifies kingly distinction, and which may 
fall by inheritance upon the brow of the meanest of 
men; but he says crown," and uses a word which 
shows that the wearer has somehow been in con- 
flict, and come out a conqueror. It is that which 
has been won. It is a mark of merit. It is not 

a crown," but the crown. Crowns may fall and 
perish ; but the crown is so enduring that others 
are scarcely worth mentioning. It is the crown 
of the life." It is fadeless. The man that endur- 
eth temptation resembles that blessed " man in 
Psalm I, who is like a tree planted by rivers of 
waters," whose leaf shall not wither." 

And the blessedness of wearing that crown 
shall be that it is given by the Lord. Anything 
is made more precious by being touched by 
Him, Now, He makes no mistake. Mortal 



66 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 



judges of a contest may, through unconscious 
bias, or some unworthy motive, or through ig- 
norance, or some other human infirmity, award 
the crown to the undeserving contestant ; but 
the Lord never makes a mistake. He has prom- 
ised it to a certain class, and He knows His 
own. Those who are to receive the crown are 
those who love Him, who have endured trial, 
not for anything which can gratify any low de- 
sires of their own, but out of love for Him. This 
is the secret of a blessed endurance. With the 
Lord, love is everything. There is no holy faith 
without love, no trustworthy hope, no worthy 
work. It is love that begets patience, and love 
for the Lord is so high and powerful that it en- 
ables a man to endure all things for Him. He 
has the constantly sustaining assurance that he 
loves the Lord, and the Lord loves him. What 
a happy man ! 



III. 



The Temptation to Visionariness. 

CHAPTER I., 13-17. 
UNWORTHY THOUGHTS OF GOD. 
AMES now passes from external trials to the 



consideration of a condition of mind into 



^ which many souls are brought by those 
trials. 

The word " temptation/' we must keep in mind, 
bears the three meanings (i) of trials, (2) of evil 
suggestions, and (3) of seduction to sin. We all 
know how our trials work on our weak nature to 
draw us into the viciousness in which we repre- 
sent God as the author of evils in which we 
indulge ; evils spiritual and evils carnal. Do we 
exhibit weakness, irascibility, peevishness ? How 
apt we are to say that if God had not allowed 
troubles to come upon us, we should never have 
indulged those ugly tempers. Does our faith fail, 
so that instead of holding to the right hand of 
His providence and seeking shelter in the bosom 
of His love, we resort to unchristian ways of tak- 
ing care of ourselves ? We charge God with driv- 
ing us to this course. Do we lose relish for holy 
things, so that in our trouble we abandon the 
bre^d that cometh down frorn heaven, and strive 




68 The Gospel of Coimnon Sense. 



to make our soul full by feeding; it with husks of 
fleshly enjoyment ? We defend ourselves to our- 
selves by charging God with driving us to this 
recourse. The consolations of God are small with 
us, and we are not content to say with holy Job, 

Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." 
He hides His face from us, and we are not true 
to our covenant with Him ; we are not willing 
to wait until the shadows pass away and He lift 
upon us the light of His countenance. We take 
ourselves to the baleful and lurid lights of our 
lusts ; and we charge God with the result. Thus 
James supposed that there might be those among 
his brethren in exile, who would say in their 
hearts that the unworthy thoughts of God and 
the temptation to apostatize which had come to 
them in the severe trials which they had en- 
dured, were to be laid at the door of God, and 
not charged to them. 

Against yielding to this form of temptation, 
James exhorts : ''Let no man say when he is se- 
duced to evil that God is the seducer'' (v. 13). 
THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 

The origin of evil has been the most puzzling 
riddle submitted to man's intellect from the first 
record of human thought down to this day. As 
God is the Eternal One, who existed before all 
things, and consequently before sin, men have 
always been prone to make Him the author of 
evil. He foreknew all things, and He made all 



The Gospel of Coimnon Sense. 69 

things. He must have foreseen that man would 
do wrong if created with a free will ; and yet He 
so created him. Does not that make God the 
author of evil t That was the mode of reason- 
ing of the ancient philosophers. The modern 
mode of reaching the same conclusion is some- 
what after the following fashion : A man's life 
is the result of his heredity and environment. 
He did not make his ancestors, and he did not 
choose his place in human society. God is re- 
sponsible for both, and therefore responsible for 
the resulting sin." 

NOT IN GOD. 

James prostrates both these arguments at a 
blow. The proper method of procedure is to 
endeavor to ascertain what kind of being God is, 
and then infer what kind of things He has done 
and will do. Find what your fountain is and you 
can determine its outflow. If you take the water 
as it is about to empty into the sea and analyze 
it, you cannot tell what it was as it burst from 
the fountain into the granite bowl up on the 
mountain-top. It has run through so much that 
was not clean granite, and has gathered into it- 
self so much of such different things, that you 
cannot tell what it was at the fountain. 

No. You cannot tempt God into being even a 
partner in your sin, in the most remote degree. 
God is untemptable and untempting. In His di- 
vine consciousness He has had no experience of 



70 Tlie Gospel of Common Sense. 



sin, and in the forth-puttings of His divine activ- 
ities He has never had any part or parcel in the 
suggestion of sin to others. As he is so holy 
that He can neither tempt nor be tempted in the 
bad sense, He must always be intending good ; 
as He is omniscient, He must always know what 
is the very best ; and as he is omnipotent, He must 
be able to carry it to the conclusions intended. 
We find man as God's creature. Whatever may 
surround that fact, we know that it is better that 
man should be simply because he is. As man 
has freedom of will, and could not exist as man 
without freedom of will, we know that it is best 
that there should be freedom of will in man. 
No ; without absurdity, we cannot think of God 
as the author of sin. 

Nor is it possible to conceive of a world in 
which there should be existing two intelligent, 
moral beings, that is, beings having relationship 
and consequently ethical possibilities, without the 
possible existence of sin ; because sin is a viola- 
tion of relations, and the existence of one man 
and of one God would institute relationships 
which would create obligations. Virtue consists 
in the exercise of the will to choose to meet and 
discharge all duties produced by obligation. But 
if a man can choose such a course as that, he can 
also choose the opposite. And that opposite is 
evil. 



The Gospel of Comnioit Sense, 71 



IN THE INDIVIDUAL. 
Thus James gives us the genesis of evil. It is 
in the individual man. The man is drawn away 
from good and caught in evil by his own lust. 
The writer lays special emphasis on this : it is 
his own ; " it is not of God ; it is not of the devil ; 
it is not of the world ; it is of the man's self and 
in the man's self. It is that in his soul without 
the exhibition of which there would be nothing 
to which the work of the devil could appeal. It 
is most important to perceive and believe this ; it 
is most important to inculcate-in all children that 
it is a mistake to lay their faults on any one else, 
even on the devil. That personage has enough 
to bear without having our sins laid upon him. 
No sinner can be reformed so long as he makes 
Satan or anyone else responsible for his trans- 
gressions. I knew a child of strong character 
and strong passions, who used to have paroxysms 
of rage. Her parents and others would some- 
times tell her to open her mouth and let the bad 
spirit go under the table. The child was grow- 
ing into the belief that she was the innocent vic- 
tim of an unseen being, who was another person, 
and she was learning to shift all the responsibil- 
ity upon that person, that person not herself. A 
friend one day taught her the fallacy of this ; 
showed her that she was the only person respon- 
sible ; that she herself was the bad spirit, and 
there was nothing to do but have that spirit, 



72 



The Gospel of Counnon Sense, 



namely, herself, totally changed. She went to 
her closet and prayed — prayed as King David 
prayed (Ps. 51) when the conviction seized him 
that it was against God, and God only, that he 
had sinned. His cry rang with trangres- 
sions," my iniquity," sin." There was no 

third party in the transaction. From the hour 
the child had that conviction, she was a changed 
person. 

So must we all feel. We can never resist 
temptation as we should, so long as we hold 
God or any one else responsible for our sins. 

HEREDITY. 

There is such a thing as heredity. That is 
perfectly well settled. There is an inherited de- 
pravity of nature in every man. You have it. 
Run your eye along the line of your depravity 
both ways. It came from your parents, and 
theirs from their ancestors. Some one must be 
responsible. If our ancestors had resisted, the 
taint might have been eliminated or modified. 
No one of them was guilty because he inherited 
it ; but he was guilty for any increase thereof 
which he sent down to his descendants. So will 
you and I be if we do not fight with all the 
weapons and aids in our reach against the seduc- 
tions to sin. 

Men seem sometimes to forget the obvious 
truth that heredity is a line which does not stop 
at them. If they recollected this truth perhaps 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 73 



they would resist sin more strenuously. Many a 
man says, Well, it's in my blood, as my grand- 
father s gluttony is in my gout. I can't help it. 
There's no use trying." And in that temper he 
throws himself heedlessly upon all ways of sinn- 
ing. And so the next generation has increased 
depravity. But God has no responsibility in this 
matter. 

ENVIRONMENT. 

In like manner we must consider our environ- 
ment. Every man must be born somewhere. He 
must have father and mother. He cannot exist 
without some environment. It is impossible to 
conceive of any environment which may not 
appeal to a human being in the way of seduction 
to evil. Therefore, no man must lay his sin to 
his environment, and through that to God. His 
environment all the more evil it is, calls upon 
him all the more loudly for a virtuous battle 
against that which appeals to him to draw him 
into sin. God cannot be held responsible if the 
man do not make the effort to be virtuous. 

Let it be understood, then, by us all and for- 
ever, that God never puts before us or around us 
anything intended by Him to influence us to do 
wrong. Let us pull up that bad thought by the 
roots. Let us never for a moment give place to 
the suggestion that by those decrees and arrange- 
ments by which the world was made and goes 
forward, God has arranged things so that there 



74 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 



must be sin sometime, somewhere, by somebody. 
Even when others tempt us, sometimes those 
very near to us and dear to us, as our husbands, 
or our wives, or our parents, or our children, our 
pastors or intimate Christian friends, w^hen it 
seems as if God might have prevented it, but by 
allowing it, becomes responsible; even when 
there are a thousand things which cannot be 
explained, some of them very torturing to a sen- 
sitive Christian ; under all circumstances, let us 
remember tnat one thing has been settled most 
thoroughly and forever by the explicit declara- 
tion, God cannot be tempted with evil, neither 
tempteth He any man, 

THE GENESIS OF EVIL. 

No ; the source of the evil is in us. James 
gives the genesis of it. His psychology is that 
of St. Paul and of the New Testament generally. 
A man is spirit, soul and body. The real person- 
ality of the man is his spirit. There is his per- 
manent identity. There is his emperorship ; for 
in the spirit is the will. The body is the spirit's 
home and the spirit's instrument of communication 
with the outer world, that world which has the 
qualities of matter. The soul is the connecting 
link between the body and spirit. In the soul 
are the desires for the things which are known 
by the senses. It is here that James finds the 
origin of evil. Desire is quite innocent in its 
normal conditions. It becomes excited under 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 



75 



the influence of the things in the outward world ; 
of those things of which it has knowledge in the 
body, or by means of the body. If those things 
are according to the will of God and the desire 
solicits, and secures the consent of the spirit, 
then the indulgence of the senses produces that 
which is good. But if the desire is stirred toward 
that which is contrary to the will of God and it 
proceeds to solicit the spirit, without whose con- 
sent nothing can be done, and succeeds in gain- 
ing the consent of the spirit, then comes sin. 

DRAWN AWAY " AND " ENTICED." 

Such seems to be the psychologic basis of 
James's argument. Then he describes the 
genesis and progress of sin. But each man is 
tempL d by his own lust, when he is being drawn 
away by it and enticed''^ (v. 14). It is a power- 
ful picture which he paints. Desire is repre- 
sented as a harlot soliciting the spirit to an 
impure embrace. This harlot's arts are repre- 
sented under two words, taken from hunting and 
fishing. As the hunter draws his game from 
some safe covert, as the fisherman baits his hook 
and catches the fish, so the harlot employs allure- 
ments to draw away the solicited person from all 
those protections to his innocency which might 
save him, that she may then overcome him with 
her blandishments. 

It is well to pause for profitable self-application 
of this great truth. We cannot be enticed " un* 



76 



The Gospel of Common SeJtse, 



til *Mrawn away." Let every fish keep to his 
cover. Let no man rush into temptation. Let 
none of us go into doubtful places," by which 
phrase we ought to understand not simply those 
places which are known to be dangerous, but also 
those places which are not knozvn to be safe. Let 
our society be chosen of those who are known to 
be pure and wholesome, not of those whose in- 
fluence over us is uncertain. 

COMPANIONS AND AMUSEMENTS. 

How much would be saved in our ordinary life 
if this rule were observed ! If, in our every-day 
table-life, we used such food in such quantities 
as we know to be wholesome, and avoided every 
article of diet of whose effect upon our stomachs 
we were doubtful, how much physical and mental 
suffering we should avoid ! If, in the choice ot 
our companions, we associated only with such 
persons as we knew to be good, and forsook all 
those whose characters were merely dubious, how 
many disagreeable and injurious complications 
we should escape ! If, in the choice of our books 
we selected only such as were known to be abso- 
lutely unexceptionable in moral tone, while good 
in literary style, how much corruption of the 
imagination, and soiling of the soul, and pain of 
conscience we should be spared ! 

Let the same rule be applied everywhere. The 
question of amusements and other enjoyments 
often arises, especially with young Christian peo- 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 77 



pie. It is the glittering fly thrown into the 
water by the skilful angler. Its brilliant colors 
can do no harm to the fish that stays away from 
it. Let the young man confine himself to such 
amusements as no one suspects of being harmful 
and he is safe. 

It goes without saying that every man must be 
amused ; that is, drawn away from strenuous 
thought, so that he may return fresher to that 
work which is necessary. If a man were so con- 
stituted that he could maintain the mental and 
bodily exercise necessary for the discharge of 
those duties on which his own welfare depends, 
as well as the welfare of others, for him there 
would be no need of amusement. The neces- 
sity for its existence lies in the necessity for se- 
rious thought, which cannot be kept in endless 
continuity. We have not the word ^^musement" 
in the English language as a synonyme for se- 
rious thought." If we had, then its opposite 
word would be amusement," as one's ''^voca- 
tion" is that which calls him off from his 'Voca- 
tion," which is his regular calling in life. What- 
soever, then, rests a man, leaves him in the best 
condition of body, soul, and spirit, to return to 
the discharge of the duties of life, that is the 
amusement which he can indulge with perfect 
impunity. When anything else is offered^, let 
him remember the fisherman's arts, copied by the 
harlot, and used by JAMES to describe the first 
part c>f the journey to destruction. 



78 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



THE PLAN OF THE SEDUCER. 
Is it not always the plan of a soul-destroyer to 
draw his victim from a safe retreat ? Does the 
gambler, the conspirator, or the harlot ever go up 
into your home, and enter the apartment, where 
you are sitting between your venerable mother 
and your pure sister, near the paternal hearth- 
stone, and entice " you, endeavoring there and 
then to induce you to engage in open wickedness ? 
Never. But the first arts of one who seeks you 
for a partner in guilt are to draw you away from 
your moral defences, knowing how easily a small 
party can resist a great force attacking a well- 
fortified castle, a party which in an open field 
would be instantly overwhelmed by the superior 
army. 

So men are often drawn from the bulwark of 
the light into the defencelessness of darkness. 
You may walk with a measure of safety through 
any city during the day ; but the social beasts of 
prey, like those of the forests, walk forth in the 
night. It would save the young men who go to 
large cities, and old men as well, if they made 
the rule to keep their confidence, and even their 
company, from strangers who address them. A 
man is safe so long as he stays in his hotel, and 
hears what any stranger has to say, but allows the 
stranger to know nothing about himself or his 
affairs. He is on the way to trouble when he 
gomrnits himself to any strange rnan on the street, 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 79 



to be led he knows not whither. He is on the 
highway to destruction if he allow himself to hold 
any conversation with any strange woman" he 
may meet on the street. The strange woman 
has been the person to be avoided from the days 
of Solomon to this day. 

Drawn away ! " That is the first danger. 
Drawn away from the father's counsel, drawn 
away from the mother's influence, drawn away 
from the sanctuary of the church service, drawn 
away from the sanctities of the Lord's Day, drawn 
away from the teaching of the Holy Scriptures. 
Whoever takes the first step does not find it dif- 
ficult to take the next and the next, and whoso- 
ever takes those few steps cannot be far from the 
destruction of all those things which are most 
valuable to a man. There is almost no difficulty 
in enticing" a man who has been ^' drawn 
away." 

A HORRIBLE PICTURE. 

But if the man allow himself to be drawn away 
and enticed, something dreadful will follow. 

Then Desire^ having conceived, brings forth Sin, 
and Sin completed becomes pregnant with death " 
(vv. IS, 16). 

What a frightful picture JAMES paints. De- 
sire has successfully solicited the will to an 
impure embrace. In the unblessed union the 
child, Sin, is conceived and finally brought forth. 
It is a little one. It may be as pretty and as 



8o The Gospel of Common Sense. 



playful as a tigers kitten. But it grows. When 
Sin, which is so vigorous, has attained its growth 
it becomes a dreadful parent, and its fearful off- 
spring is Death. Before a man sins let him con- 
sider this tremendous genealogy. The sinner is 
the father of his own sin and the grandfather of 
his own death. It is all inside himself. It is not 
of God ; it is not of God ! 

Whatever may have been James's special 
thought and intention as towards his Hebrew 
brethren, however much he may have endeavored 
to warn them against that road which leads to 
complete and final apostasy, the lesson to us is 
plain. Sin continued grows stronger and stronger 
by habit, until it has obtained such dominion of 
us as to strangle the spirit and thus make a 
complete wreck of the whole man. So, while 
James is endeavoring to save us from having 
wrong thoughts of God, as if providential trials 
were temptations in the bad sense, according to 
the Rabbinical metaphor, he thrills us with a 
stirring warning against the dangerous, the ruin- 
ous nature of sin, which at first may be like a 
spider's web, but afterwards becomes a strong 
cable. 

Having done this, he returns to the correction 
of the error into which we are prone to fall. 
That correction he finds in setting before us the 
opposite truth. So far is God from being the au- 
thor of evil, He js the only author of any good. 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 



8i 



He IS the author of all good ; there is no good 
which does not proceed from God, as certainly as 
there is no evil which does not have its origin 
outside of God. 

A GREAT ERROR. 
Do not err^ my bri thren beloved^' says our 
author, v. i6 ; do not wander away from the 
truth as to the essential nature of God. 

It may be well to consider the verse as being 
more than a mere rhetorical call to something 
very important which the writer had to say. It 
does that most effectually, but it does something 
more. It emphasizes the importance of having 
correct views of God. In regard to other things, 
wander into the forests of falsehood so far as one 
may, the man who holds the truth as to God can 
never be finally lost. And yet how few seem to 
appreciate that. Any philosophy of physical 
science is unsound and untrustworthy in propor- 
tion to its holding unsound relations to the truth 
as to God. The same is true in civil life : no 
man can attain to the loftiest statesmanship, 
whose principles of government are not in har- 
monious accord with the truth as to God. It is 
equally true in the religious life : heresies in doc- 
trine, errors in morals, and wrongs in life are to 
be traced almost invariably to some mistake of 
the truth as to God. Let a man be right here, 
and he has found a hasp on which he may hang 
the first link of any chain of thought or action or 



82 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

life which he may be able to forge in time and in 
eternity. Do not wander from the great central 
truth as to God. 

A GREAT TRUTH. 
And this is that great central truth. 
Every gift that is good, and every perfect en- 
dowment is from above, coming down from the 
Father of lights^' No man has anything good 
which has been produced by his own nature. 
All good is from outside. That is the first part 
of the truth. JAMES employs in this sentence 
the very word which Jesus used in speaking to 
Nicodemus in regard to the new birth (John 3 : 3), 
begotten from above^ It teaches the truth 
that there is no such thing as spontaneous regen- 
eration. So, His brother James teaches that 
there is no such thing as spontaneous goodness 
among men. If there be anything good in the 
universe, enjoyed by men or beasts, or any other 
thing living in heaven or on earth, visible or in- 
visible, it is the gift of God. If it be a transient 
good, enjoyed and then gone, so that nothing 
but the memory of the enjoyment is left, it is the 
gift of God. If it be the fountain of a stream 
rolling out pleasure or power to irrigate the 
world, it is the gift of God. The universe may be 
searched. If anywhere anything can be found 
which any intellect can perceive, and any heart 
can feel to be good, it has come from God. If it 
be good for any man*s body, good for any man's 



The Gospel of Commo7i Sense. 



83 



soul, good for any man's spirit, if it be good for 
any other animal, if it be good for the present or 
future inhabitants of the earth — find a good thing, 
and you find a Godsend. 

Among the good things, the best is light, the 
physical light which makes the things of the outer 
world visible, the intellectual light which enables 
any man to see truths and their relations, the 
spiritual light which enables a man to walk as 
seeing Him that is invisible and the invisible world 
by which He is surrounded. God is the Father of 
" lights,'* the source of all conceivable modes of 
illumination, and He pours down upon men all the 
good things they have. It is not a shower, an oc- 
casional gift of things desirable, but it is an un- 
ceasing rain of blessings. It is incessant sunshine. 
As at all hours rays of light are going off in all 
directions from the sun, and covering all the 
space of the solar system, so are God's gifts going 
from Him, descending from Him, ceaselessly, in an 
unbroken stream of blessing and an uninterrupted 
radiation of light. 

THE FATHER OF LIGHTS. 
He is the Father of lights, the producer of the 
heavenly bodies, the source of all the light of 
knowledge, all the light of wisdom, all the light 
of faith, all the light of hope, all the light of love, 
all the light of joy. If any man arise in his 
generation to shine as a star in the hemisphere ot 
human society, God kindled the splendor of his 



84 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 



intellect and the benign radiance of his high 
spiritual character. If any woman arise to bright- 
en a home, or send the kindly light of her sweet- 
ness over any cheerless portion of our race, it was 
God who dwelt in her heart, and smiled through 
her life. If on the coast of our humanity, we, 
mariners on life's uncertain sea, behold light- 
houses so placed along the shore as to enable us 
to take bearings and shape courses that bring us 
to our havens of safety, it is God who has erected 
each such light-house and kindled each such 
pharos. 

The world can never cease being grateful for 
Moses, and David, and Paul ; for Homer, and 
Plato, and Shakespeare ; for Copernicus, Kepler, 
and Newton ; for Jerome, and Luther, and Wes- 
ley — the great lights of philosophy, poetry and 
piety. It must be remembered that none of 
these came of themselves ; that they were all 
kindled by the Father of lights. The great light 
which inwardly enlighteneth every man that 
Cometh into the world ' is a light that streams 
from God« And He who dared to declare of 
Himself what no one has yet shown to be untrue, 

I am the light of the world ; he that followeth 
Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the 
light of life " — He was the Son of God. 

All through human society at this day we find 
followers of Jesus — men blameless and harm- 
less, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 



85 



midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among 
whom they shine as lights in the world " (Phil. 
2:15), and we know that they are not the product 
of any malevolent spirit ; we know that they 
themselves did not produce the light which 
shineth in them ; we know that for them we are 
indebted to God, who calls Himself * the Father 
of Lights/' 

THE CHANGELESS FATHER. 
Of this God, who is the giver of every transient 
gift which is good, and every permanent endow- 
ment which is valuable, James says : With whom 
there is not existing a change or shadow-casting!'* 
He took his metaphor from nature. His readers 
would immediately think of the sun, the ruler of 
the solar system. And that would remind them of 
the very obvious phenomena of the sun's decli- 
nature to the south and return to the north, as 
the seasons succeed one another, and the alter- 
nations of day and night. If these suggested 
any mutability, or variability or inconstancy in 
God, anything indeed which might weaken our 
faith, he adds that God is not only the giver of 
every good and perfect gift, but He is also with- 
out variableness or shadow-making. It is not 
necessary to press the astronomical figures which 
he employs. It is clear that he means to assert 
most emphatically two things about God, name- 
ly, that with Him there is no alienation of good- 
ness and no obscuration of goodness. As one 
says, God is always in the meridian." 



86 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



Of such a God it would be absurd to suppose 
that He could be the author of evil or the tempt- 
er of His mortal children. Any logical pro- 
cesses which landed a mind on that proposition 
may thence be inferred to be illegitimate and 
vicious. 



IV. 



The New Life versus Fanaticism. 

CHAPTER I., 18-27. 
REGENERATION. 

JAMES presses upon his readers the idea of 
God's invariable goodness in another form. He 
appeals to their experience in regeneration. 
In proof of the proposition that God, the Father 
of lights, cannot do evil but good, always and in 
every direction, there was the fact of their own 
conversion to Christianity, and their spiritual 
new-birth. ''According to His free determina- 
tion He hath brought us fortli, by the word of His 
truths that we should be a kind of first fruit of His 
creatures " (v. 18). 

Here is a splendid specimen of God's good gifts, 
in that He has given us eternal life through His 
Son Jesus. This life is the climax of divine good- 
ness, as Death, the-child of sin, is the climax of 
human badness. It was free. It came by no 
law, it was produced by no necessity, it was the 
product of no natural evolution, it arose from His 
own goodness and lovingness. He emphasizes 
'*us" in addressing Hebrew-Christians. They 
were originally chosen by His divine goodness to 
be the repository of the oracles of God, the ark, 



88 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



so to speak, which should bear the truth of God 
down the stream of the centuries. When the 
fulness of time had come, and Jesus inaugurated 
the ripened plans for the world's salvation, those 
Israelites who earliest became Christians, had the 
distinction of being a kind of first-fruits of all 
God's creatures. Christianity had completed to 
them the revelation that under God the highest 
beings are men, that humanity is to take the lead 
of the universe, that men are superior to angels, 
and men are to live forever, and are to lead and 
govern and teach the intelligences of the universe, 
that those individuals of humanity who are to do 
this, are those who receive eternal life through 
Jesus Christ, and that the first, as the first-fruits 
of an abundant harvest, are those Jews who were 
early in Christ, having been begotten by the 
word of truth. 

It is as if he had said to them, Think of it, 
brethren. Poor, unknown, despised, both among 
the Gentiles and in your own nationality, you are 
heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ Jesus. 
Born children of Abraham, ye have been reborn 
brothers of Jesus. Whoever else may by any 
process of thought be betrayed into accounting 
God the author of evil, you never can. To 
you He must ever be the Giver of every good 
gift, physical, intellectual, spiritual, temporal and 
eternal.'* 



Tlie Gospel of Common Sense, 89 

FANATICISM. 
James now passes to an admonition to his 
brethren against fanaticism as another form of 
temptation. He proceeds: ''Let every man be 
swift to hear^ slow to speak y slow to wrath; for 
the wrath of man does not zvork the righteousness 
of God. Wherefore^ removing all impurity ^ and 
all outflowing^ in meekiiess receive the ingrafted 
wordy the thing which is able to save your souls. 
Buty become doers of the word and not hearers 
only^ deluding your own selves. For, if any one is 
a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto 
a man observing his natural face in a mirror , for 
he observed himself, and he hath gone azvay, a?id he 
forgot what sort of a man he was. But he who 
becomes absorbed in the completed law, the law of 
liberty, and continues, not a hearer that forgets, 
but a doer who works, this man shall be blessed in 
his doings.^' 

The well-known wisdom of swiftness to hear 
and slowness to speak, has been inculcated by 
teachers in all ages. On his disciples Pythago- 
ras enjoined five years of preliminary silence. It 
was supposed that such a long probation in which 
there should be total abstinence from speech 
would give the disciple the advantage of hearing 
much and hearing it attentively ; because the 
mind was not preoccupie 1 with preparing and 
uttering an answer. There was supposed to be 
also the other advantage of pondering what was 



90 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



heard; so that it should be well marked and 
thoroughly digested. Some one has called at- 
tention to the fact, that a man has two ears and 
but one tongue, and inferred therefrom that a 
man ought to hear at least twice as much as he 
speaks. 

SWIFT TO HEAR AND SLOW TO SPEAK. 

As touching the matter of which James had 
been writing to his brethren, namely, their 
troubles and the temptations likely to arise there- 
from, this admonition was most timely. They 
should be swift to hear. God, who had spoken 
to Elijah in the still small voice, was now speaking 
to them in their great trials. God is talking. 
He may speak slowly. We must wait God's 
leisure." We must be attentive to the voice in 
the darkness, as little Samuel was to the night- 
voice in the Temple. God is His own interpre- 
ter ; but He never hurries ; with Him a thou- 
sand years are as a day. 

And so we must be slow to speak ; very slow 
to make our own interpretation ; and slower in 
making charges against God. If we speak in- 
continently, we shall not only be indiscreet, but 
we shall excite ourselves to anger. The tongue 
kindles. 

See what folly it is to be angry against God for 
His providences. Do we know what God is do- 
ing } Does not God know all things } Can He 
not relieve } And will He not relieve at the 



Tlic Gospel of CorniJion Sense, gl 



proper time and in the proper manner ? See 
what a sin it is: that great, black sin of ingratitude. 
Has not every good gift enjoyed by us come from 
Him ? What led Him to the bestowment of 
those gifts ? Was not the motive wholly in 
Him? Does He ever change? Is he not the 
same ? Whatsoever, therefore, comes from Him 
must be good. 

It is well to regulate our lives by the great 
precept, Swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to 
wrath," because of the injurious effect upon others 
of a failure to be guided thereby. Our circle of 
relatives and friends know how quick to advance 
opinions are those who are either ignorant or 
half-taught. If they discover that we are im- 
patient of the speech of others, are unwilling to 
hear what may be said upon the other side, they 
will perceive in us an unchristian lack of charity 
for others as well as the absence of that modesty 
which always accompanies wisdom. If they find 
that we have an off-hand opinion upon all the 
gravest questions which concern God and man. 
upon the most mysterious problems of the universe, 
they will lose respect for our utterances, and our 
influence over them for good will depart. If we 
are not slow to anger, it will exhibit such a want 
of self-control as will deprive us of the power of 
governing others. 

SLOW TO WRATH. 

Haste in thought or speech tends to anger, as 
the wise man knew when he said, Be not hasty 



92 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



in thy spirit to be angry*' (Eccl. 7:9). To be 
angry with the truth is quite as much a folly as 
a sin, and so is it to be angry with those who 
tell us the truth. The king of Israel was a con- 
temptible person when he declined to send for 
Macaiah, and said of him to the king of Judah, ^' I 
hate him, for he doth not prophesy good of me, but 
evil '' (i Kings 22 : 8). Jonah was not a bad man, 
he was a prophet of the Lord, yet the Lord's 
merciful dealings with Nineveh displeased him, 
because it seemed to disparage his prophetic 
authority. It displeased Jonah exceedingly, 
and he was very angry " (Jonah 4 : i). His anger 
threw a cloud over all his character, and over all 
his previous life, and over the first missionary en- 
terprise undertaken on the planet. We leave 
Jonah with a sort of contempt, as the curtain 
drops over the picture of Jehovah's remonstrating 
with him, and saying, '*Doest thou well to be 
angry for the gourd," and Jonah's peevish reply, 
^* I do well to be angry, even unto death," and 
the Lord's grandeur, His wide goodness, as He 
says, Thou hast spared the gourd for the which 
thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow, 
which came up in a night and perished in a 
night ; and should not I spare Nineveh, that 
great city wherein are more than six score thou- 
sand persons that cannot discern between their 
right hand and their left hand, and also much 
cattle?" Let us remember that anger against 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 93 



God is anger against infinite and eternal love, and 
to indulge it is to make a copartnership with 
Satan. 

Moreover, the wrath of man does not work out 
the righteousness of God, either in ourselves or in 
others. There is no regulative force in anger as 
there is in love. Anger is zeal gone crazy. 
James knew that his brethren were apt to be 
angry in theological and ecclesiastical discussions. 
He warns them that no good would come of such 
heat. They did not all take his advice. Some 
still held that men could be brought by passionate 
appeals to see the truth as they saw it. The 
result was the Jewish war. Mahomet thought 
the same, and so drew the sword. Christian 
sects have pursued the same course towards one 
another. Where there have been no unsheathed 
swords and no kindled fagots and no material 
instruments of bodily torture, there has been 
fierce wrath in controversy and terrible denun- 
ciations and social pains and penalties ; but never 
yet, since the world began, has the wrath of man 
worked the righteousness of God. 

Epigrammatic as much of JAMESES writings are, 
there is in them a continuity of thought well 
worth studying. His brother, Jesus, in the 
memorable intercessory prayer which He of- 
fered to His Father, just before His departure 
from His disciples, indicated the instrument of 
human sanctification; Sanctify them through 



94 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

the truth ; Thy word is truth." (John 17 : 17.) 
When James is instructing and guiding his 
brethren, he guards them against allowing their 
troubles to become temptations, in the sense of 
seductions to evil, and, in case they sinned, he 
warned against the additional sin of laying their 
wrong-doing at the door of God. That led him 
to a description of the genesis of evil ; and that 
to a description of the genesis of holiness. God 
begets us unto righteousness of His own will 
(masculine), with the word of truth (feminine) 
(v. 18). 

A PREPARATION OF HEART. 

That the word of God may have full power 
over us, there must be a preparation of heart for 
its reception. We must cease to do evil before 
we can learn to do well. We must lay aside 
everything which is offensive to the purity of 
God. By the term filthiness " J AMES seems to 
wish to arouse a sense of the loathsomeness of 
all sin. He does not simply mean that we shall 
lay aside those particular sins which are disgust- 
ing to us ; but rather to impress us that all sin 
has in it that which makes it disgusting to God. 
He may here be supposed to be thinking of sins 
of the flesh, the visible violations of the moral 
law. Then we are to lay aside all ^^superfluity 
of naughtiness,'* as our Common Version has it. 
That does not mean that there is a measure of sin 
we may retain, but we must draw the line some- 



Tlie Gospel of Cormnon Sense, 



95 



where. The word translated superfluity " signi- 
fies ''an outflowing." The same word occurs in 
Romans 5:15, and 2 Cor. 8:2. It is a New 
Testament word, and indicates that which goes 
out to others. Here it means the outflowing of 
maHce. By the one phrase James may be sup- 
posed to refer to sins of the flesh, and by the 
other sins of the spirit. While indulging our- 
selves either in sins which others cannot see, or 
sins which show themselves in displays of evil 
temper, we cannot profit by the word of God. 

Meekness, as well as purity, is essential to the 
proper hearing of the word of God. One cannot 
in private approach the study of the word in the 
pride of opinion or of scholarship, nor can one 
resort to the word for the purpose of sustaining 
one's own dogma, and while in that spirit find the 
word profitable. You know that this is sometimes 
done. A man may take down the Bible to find 
proof passages, just as a lawyer may search the 
Reports of the Supreme Court to find only that 
which will sustain his theory of the case which 
he is to try. In such search he throws aside what- 
ever does not make for his side. He is not learn- 
ing law, he is hunting helps. If the Bible be so 
studied it will be improfitable. We must approach 
it with the docility of little children (Matt. 18 : 
23). We must simply wish to learn what is the 
mind of the Spirit in the word of God. 



96 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



LISTENING TO PREACHING. 
In that spirit men must listen to preaching. 
They must not love to hear only that which suits 
their fancies, their tastes, or their opinions. In 
seeking a preacher their one inquiry should be 
for the man who can most edifyingly unfold to 
them the word of the Lord. It may hurt, in the 
sense of giving pain ; but so may a needed surgi- 
cal operation. Growing angry with the surgeon 
is not promotive of any good to the patient. So, 
all malice must be put out of the heart if the 
word of the Lord is to have free course and be 
glorified. 

The sins of the flesh and of the spirit must be 
put away, so far as we have power to do it, that 
the word of God may be ingrafted in us. Wher- 
ever grafting is known, this is an impressive 
phrase. The tree is cut open that the new shoot 
may be inserted. 

The first lesson is a recurrence of what we have 
already been taught, namely, that that which saves 
a man comes from the outside." No manner or 
amount of culture which a man can give himself 
will save that man by making him holy, any more 
than anything which the wild apple-tree can do 
for itself, will turn it into the producer of the best 
kinds of apples. It is always from without. It is 
not cultivation men need so much as regenera- 
tion. In the spiritual it is as in the material: 
Life is always from without. Nothing has ever 
been known to beget itself. 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 97 



THE INGRAFTED WORD. 

The second lesson is that our only hope of sal- 
vation is the having the word of God ingrafted in 
our spirits. This makes the whole subject tre- 
mendously solemn. The destruction of the soul 
is that which results from the failure to have the 
word of God so in us that we share its nature. 

But, it is indispensable that we be doers of the 
word, not hearers only. The man who supposes 
that all that is necessary is that he run over a 
passage of Holy Scripture before leaving his bed- 
chamber, and another at family prayer, and give 
respectful attention to his clergyman in syna- 
gogue or church, is greatly mistaken. He must 
work out in life what he reads or hears from the 
Holy Scripture, as the sap of a tree works out 
fruit on the stem which is grafted thereon. It is 
the failure to do this which has so greatly re- 
tarded our religious life. Men have heard the 
ward with their outward ears, and have gone out 
of the church thinking that the sermon was done, 
whereas it had not begun in their practice, not 
even in their hearts. 

No ; the moment I have learned anything from 
the word I must make a strenuous effort to re- 
produce in my life. Then, the next thing 
learned ; then, the rest; and so on, until my life 
be an incarnation of the Bible. If each hearer did 
this how powerful our holy faith would be among 
men ! Compared with this what is success in 



98 The Gospel of Cormnon Sense, 



controversy, although I could silence every theo- 
logical opponent ? What Biblical learning, al- 
though I could repeat every verse of the Bible 
in every tongue ever spoken among men ? 
Neither of these would save me ; but the truth, 
animated unto fruitage by my spiritual vitality, 
would make me a tree worth a place in God's or- 
chard. What kind of people are those who hear 
but fail to practise ? They are like a man who 
sees his face in a mirror, perhaps while shaving, 
and after he has gone, cannot reproduce to his 
memory any accurate picture of the countenance 
which he had seen. So, the hearers who are 
non-doers carry away a vague idea of their spirit- 
ual character. It does them no good. It is this 
vagueness which is so injurious to the mass of 
gospel hearers. The preacher who can print 
something distinct upon the minds of his people 
can be of real service to them. They must be 
arrested, shaken, roused, stimulated, spurred, 
stung, until they feel the indispensableness of 
turning from less important things to give them- 
selves to the study of the word of God. 

THE LAW OF LIBERTY. 

James paints a companion picture to that of the 
man who glances at a mirror. It is that of a man 
who bends himself to — who becomes absorbed 
in — the law, the completed law, the system of 
religion which began with Abraham and was 
completed by Jesus. The incomplete law set forth 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 99 

by Moses, can only show him just what he is, as 
a mirror shows a man his face. Even if a man bow 
himself to that, and become absorbed in that, it 
only shows how bad he is, and even the most 
vigorous effort to keep that law only more and 
more demonstrates to him what a slave he is to 
his sinfulness. But, the law which is completed 
in Jesus is the law o liberty ; that law which is 
the Gospel of redemption frees a man from the 
guilt of his committed sins and from the power 
of his native sinfulness. 

But, he must be constantly obedient thereto. 
It is not a mere passing glance that is required. 
He must inspect it closely, and meditate upon it 
deeply, and obey it constantly. Jesus said (John 
14 : 21), He that hath My commandments and 
keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me ; and he that 
loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will 
love him, and will manifest Myself to him " ; and 
(John 18:31) *^if the Son shall make you free, 
ye shall be free indeed." It was the mistake of 
the Jew of jAMES'S day that he believed a 
knowledge of the law was saving. Against this 
error Paul teaches when he says (Romans i : 13), 

For not the hearers of the law are righteous 
before God, but the doers of the law shall be ac- 
counted righteous." And so Jesus said of those 
who abode in Him and in whom His words 
abode, that they should glorify His Father, and 
bear much fruit, and so be His disciples (John 15). 



lOO The Gospel of Common Sense. 

Such a man shall be blessed in his doing." Re- 
mark that the reward of happiness is not to come 
to him for his deed, and is not in the future. The 
blessedness is in the very act. We need not seek 
blessedness ; we must practise obedience, and 
then the blessedness comes of itself. Who that 
has set himself to doing all that the Lord com- 
mands has not found that it made life, even a life 
of self-sacrifice, more delicious than all carnal de- 
light > 

A MISTAKE AS TO RELIGION. 

James then points out to his Jewish-Christian 
brethren a distinction between false and true re- 
ligion, which is just as good for our age as for his. 
'''If among you any man fancies himself religious^ 
not leading his tongue zvitJi a bridle, but cheating 
his ozvn heart, this mans religion is useless^ 

Whether there was some special reason why 
James should call the attention of his Hebrew- 
Christian brethren to sins of the tongue we do not 
know ; but we do know that if ever a generation 
needed repeated and pungent reminders on this 
subject, ours is that generation. Perhaps, also, he 
felt as if some might restrict what he had just said 
to acts, and he desired to let them know that they 
must include words as well. Moreover, the Jews 
in the time of Christ were misled by the belief 
that professions were sufficient, so that if any man 
read and taught the law, especially if he taught it, 
he would inevitably be saved, whatever might be 



The Gospel of Common Sense. loi 

the moral character of his hfe. James's brother 
Jesus found that sentiment so powerful among His 
disciples, that He was compelled to warn them that 
it was not those who made loud professions that 
were to be saved. Almost the last thing He said 
in His memorable discourse called the Sermon on 
the Mount/* was to hft a warning against that 
form of self-deception which was founded on mere 
profession. Not every one that saith unto Me 
*Lord, Lord/ shall enter into the kingdom of 
heaven, but he that doeth the will of My Father 
in heaven" (Matt. /: 21). And the words which 
next follow are tremendous: ''Many will say to Me 
in that day, ^Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied 
in Thy name ? and in Thy name have cast out 
devils ? and in Thy name done many wonderful 
works?' And then will I profess to them, I never 
knew you; depart from Me ye that work iniquity." 

We must not be deceived by our own profes- 
sions. If any member of our body be an instru- 
ment of sin it shows that our hearts are still uncon- 
quered by the grace of God. And no member 
more quickly shows this than the tongue. And 
few things are more injurious than an unbridled 
tongue. A fooFs tongue wanders everywhere, into 
fields lawful and unlawful. Men have no right to 
talk heedlessly. It is no excuse that a speaker 
did not mean to do wrong, or that he "meant 
nothing by it/' We are bound to mean some- 
thing every time we speak, and we are bound to 



I02 The Gospel of Common Sense, 

mean something good; the tongue must have on 
the bridle of thought, and that must be held by 
the reason, which is the right hand of religion. It 
is of those words which were not intended by the 
speaker to be profitable, words uttered when he 
^'meant nothing,'' that Jesus said : ^'I say unto you 
that every idle word that men shall speak, they 
shall give account thereof in the day of judg- 
ment " (Matt. 12 : 36) 

It may be a question which does most harm, a 
false tongue or an unbridled tongue. In the case 
of the former, it may so soon be discovered that 
it is the instrument of a liar that all men can 
guard themselves against it ; but the unbridled 
tongue may belong to a man who has some 
pleasing qualities, or to a woman who but for her 
wild tongue would be a charming person, and so 
people are thrown off their guard, and the secret 
poison of the bitter and bad word may work dis- 
astrously. 

The man who professes to be a believer and 
possesses an unbridled tongue, is utterly useless 
to the cause of all true religion. He may be very 
punctual in attendance upon all forms of public 
worship ; he may even take part in them, ex- 
hibiting great gifts in prayer and great zeal for 
religion ; he may be a very genial and com- 
panionable person, witty and bright ; he may 
seem to take great interest in others, and give 
of his own income or substance to promote what 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 103 



are considered the interests of religion ; all that 
and much more may he do ; with the industry of 
a gambler striving to cheat from himself the ver- 
dict that he is a truly religious man ; and yet all 
the while that man's religion may be as empty as 
a bubble, vain and unprofitable to others and un- 
helpful to himself ; idle, foolish, useless, trifling, 
thoughtless, wanton, irreverent, profane, for the 
word translated 'Mdle" means all these things. 
RELIGION IS IN CHARACTER. 
James teaches us that the proof of religion is 
not in mere profession, but in character, and 
therefore a man cannot by words prove to him- 
self, or to his fellow-man, that he is religious ; the 
proof is in his actions. His brother Jesus had 
said, By their fruits ye shall know them " (Matt. 
7 : 20). * 

Religion^ clear and spotless, toward God, even 
the Father y is this : to keep guardianship over or- 
phans and widows in their affliction^ to keep one's self 
stainless from the world'' (v. 27). 

It is necessary to notice that the writer is not 
giving us a definition of religion, but a descrip- 
tion ; a description of its character by showing 
something which it will do outwardly, something 
it will produce which we shall be able to see. It 
were a great mistake to consider this an authori- 
tative, scientific definition of religion. The writer 
had been pointing out the marks of a useless re- 
ligion. He now indicates the characteristics of 



104 "^^^^ Gospel of Common Sense, 

any religion which is pure and spotless. Indeed, 
it might be written ''any religion," which God 
sees to be pure and spotless, will have the char- 
acteristics of outward beneficence and inward 
purity. 

By a beautiful figure, he likens religion to a 
gem, a precious stone, the value of which depends 
upon the two qualities of (i) being clear through 
and through, without any inner malformation, and 
(2) being free from all stain or flaw on the out- 
side. Positively, and as to its interior, it is clear 
and unclouded ; negatively, and as to its exterior, 
it is spotless and flawless. Any religion which 
has these qualities is a true religion, and will 
produce purity and usefulness ; and, whatever 
its pretensions, a religion destitute of these, is 
worthless. 

Let us notice how James turns this subject God- 
ward, whereas the general disposition is to turn 
it manward. It is not of such importance to me 
that men consider me reHgious ; they may be 
mistaken. Nor, that I consider myself religious ; 
I may be mistaken, may even deceive myself. 
But God cannot be mistaken or deceived. That 
religion which, in His judgment, is clear and 
spotless, which presents no cloudiness and no flaw 
to His inspection, is the religion that is worth 
thinking about. Indeed, the phrase which we 
have translated toward God,'' and which the 
Common Version gives before God," strictly 
means in the judgment of God." 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 105 
A LIFE OF BENEFICENCE. 

A truly religious life is a life of beneficence. It 
does not consist alone in creeds and opinions, 
although it could not exist without them. It is 
built on a religion which looks outward more than 
inward. The subject thereof is careful for the 
rights and welfare of* others, not spending his 
whole time and force on himself in morbid study 
of his interior spiritual conditions and experiences. 
It is an indication that the man is a child of God 
when he bears the family likeness. The children 
are like the Father, and much the larger part of 
the revelation which God makes of Himself is not 
what God thinks of Himself or does for Himself, 
but what He thinks of others and does for others. 
He represents Himself as beginning farthest off 
from Himself, and taking first under His special 
divine care those who are most helpless and who 
give least promise of making any return ; little 
children whose fathers have died and left them 
without means, and their mothers, who are all 
the worse off because they have these little chil- 
dren to provide for. He actually prides Himself 
on being /^^^r God. A father of the fatherless 
and a judge of the widows is God in His holy 
habitation" (Ps. 68 15). 

The ethical principle laid down is that the man 
who has the most need of you has the greatest 
claim upon you. 



lo6 The Gospel of Common Se7tse, 

Then we have directions for the manner of benef- 
icence. True religion requires the personal pres- 
ence of the man where his benevolence is to do 
good. The tendency of our age is to help others 
by proxy, through associations for the relief of 
the poor, orphanages, widows' homes. Sisters of 
the Stranger, and many other like praiseworthy 
institutions. There certainly is no harm in work- 
ing through all these instrumentalities ; indeed, 
they have claims upon us ; but no man must con- 
tent himself with only such working. He must 
inspect, he must visit, and he must make per- 
sonal acquaintance with the widow and the fath- 
erless. 

(1) This is necessary for his own development. 
The Captain of our salvation might have re- 
mained seated on His throne and have com- 
manded the forces of good to charge against the 
forces of evil. But He did no such thing. He 
came down into the thick of the fight, and wore 
garments rolled in blood, and took scars of human 
battle on His person to be seen forever in heaven 
as fadeless marks of His immortal love. The 
Captain of our salvation became * perfect through 
suffering." 

(2) It is necessary for those who are helped. 
How is the widow to feel that you stand to 
represent the love of her departed husband if she 
never sees you } How is the orphan to have any 
idea of fatherhood if he never sees any one who 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 107 

represents that relation to him ? His own father 
is dead ; if you send him only money and clothes 
and kind words, is that all there is of fatherhood ? 
Remember that children climb to the idea of 
the Fatherhood of God on their experience of 
human fatherhood. To a child who never knew 
its earthly parents the worst of orphanage is that 
it cuts him off from the human representation of 
the divine Fatherhood. To such we must strive 
to apply that gracious lack. It cannot be done 
without our personal intercourse with the child. 

Let it be remembered that the Scriptures do 
not give a blessing to the man who distributes 
alms, gives food and clothes and money. This 
he may do, as Paul points out, without a par- 
ticle of charity. And it comes to nothing. 

Blessed is he that consider eth the poor " is the 
Scriptural benediction (Ps. 41 : i). And the word 
in this place means the application of the mind 
so as to make wise conclusions in regard to the 
matter in hand. It occurs only in Job 24:27, 
Psalm 41 : I, Psalm 64:9, Proverbs 21 : 12, and 
Daniel 7 : 8, and always with this sense. 

Lecky {'f History of European Morals,'* II. 98) 
well says that ^'the rich man, prodigal of money, 
which to him is of little value, but altogether in- 
capable of devoting any personal attention to the 
object of his alms, often injures society by his 
donations ; but this is rarely the case with that 
far nobler charity which makes men familiar with 



lo8 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

the haunts of wretchedness, and follows the ob- 
ject of his care through all the phases of his life." 
A LIFE OF PURITY. 

Not less necessary than outward beneficence is 
inward purity. Indeed, that is the spring of all 
that is good in the outward life, and if not men- 
tioned first, it must be presupposed. And then 
it would occur to the mind of the writer that- 
there was a danger to purity of character in that 
very activity of beneficence which he had stated 
as one of the characteristics of any religion ac- 
ceptable to God. The phrase the world " im- 
plied to James, as it did to the other early Chris- 
tians, not the orderly universe which the Greek 
word was originally used to designate, nor its 
secondary meaning of human society, but in a 
special sense, perhaps it should be called a New 
Testament sense, human society in its ungodly 
bias. Dean Alford seems to give us its real 
meaning. The whole earthly creation, sepa- 
rated from God and lying in sin, which, whether 
as consisting in the men who serve it, or the en- 
ticements which it holds out to evil lust, is to 
Christians a source of continual defilement." 
From all the sin that was in the Jewish world, 
the Hebrew-Christian world, the Roman world, 
James would have his brethren saved. 

Times change. Manners change. Sin puts on 
different guises and disguises. We cannot be 
separated from the human society which we are 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 109 



to help. There is as much to soil the soul in the 
society of the nineteenth century in London and 
New York as there was in the first century in 
Rome and Corinth. We must keep ourselves 

unspotted from the world " around us, the world 
which separates itself from God. 

So, while not defining religion, jAMES does de- 
scribe its characteristics, such characteristics as 
are indispensable for anything that God would 
call religion, namely, inward purity and outward 
beneficence. 



V. 



The Temptation to Partiality. 

CHAPTER II., I-I3. 
PARTIALITY FOR THE RICH. 

HAVING warned his brethren, first, against 
the temptation to charge their sins to 
God, and, secondly, against the tempta- 
tion to fanaticism, James, thirdly, warns them 
against the temptation to partiality founded on 
national and inherited prejudice and on the ap- 
peals which wealth makes to the imagination. 

These are his words in chapter 11 : 1-13 : ''Mj/ 
brethren^ do not in personal partialities hold the 
faith of our Lord, the fesus Christ of Glory, For 
if there come into your assembly a man be-gold- 
ringedy in brilliantly-colored clothing, and there 
come in a poor person in sordid clothing, and you 
have regard to him wearing the brilliant-colored 
clothing, and say to him ^Sit thou thus, beautifully,' 
and say to the poor person ^ Stand thou there ^ or 
^:>it thou thus, by my footstool,' do you not both 
make distinctions among yourselves and become 
judges with evil thoughts? Hear, brethre^t mine, 
beloved; has not God chosen the poor of the world, 
who are rich in faith and heirs of that kingdom 
which He has proclaimed for those who love Him ? 



The Gospel of Couunon Sense, 1 1 1 



But ye have dishonored the poor. Do not the rich 
oppress you ? Are they not those zuho drag you to 
the courts ? Are they not those wlio blaspheme that 
beautiful name which zvas called upon you / " 

Our author seems to have made himself well 
acquainted with the different forms of temptation 
which were likely to assail his beloved Hebrew- 
Christian brethren scattered abroad among the 
Gentiles, endeavoring to maintain a spiritual 
Christianity under the restraints of old inherited 
prejudices. He had somehow learned that in 
their church life there had appeared a partiality 
to persons, which, whether based on national pre- 
judice or social distinctions, was not simply un- 
charitable, but very unjust, and very destructive of 
the peace of the Church as well as of the religious 
Hfe of the individual believer. 

His description is very picturesque, whether we 
fancy the case described as being in the judicial 
assembly, or in the general congregation for wor- 
ship, or the Christian community as distinguished 
from Judaism and paganism. Such conduct was 
likely to occur, and in any case was detrimental to 
their Christianity because it was wrong. What- 
ever is wrong is not only impolitic but unchristian. 
The parties, rich and poor, may be of those who 
are differenced only in their estates. It might be 
a rich Jew and a poor Jew; or a rich Gentile and 
a poor Gentile but the probability would be that 
the rich man was the Jew and the poor man the 



1 1 2 The Gospel of Common Sense, 

Gentile, so that here the old and strong national 
bias would play upon their decisions and their con- 
duct. 

The rich man is set before us strikingly. He 
has splendid dress. It is brilliantly colored, and 
attracts immediate attention to him. He is not 
merely elegantly attired ; he is gorgeous in his 
appearance; not only does he wear rings, such and 
as many as were customary, but he is loaded with 
rings. In our day, a gentleman may wear his 
wedding ring or his seal ring, but if we should see 
a man with four rings on each finger of both 
hands, we should regard him as over-dressed. If 
each ring were costly, so that the whole set should 
represent a fortune, and we knew that the pos- 
sessor could afford it, we should still regard a 
man wearing forty rings as a vulgar person. The 
word which our Common Version renders **with 
a gold ring " occurs in this place and probably 
nowhere else, either in New Testament or classic 
Greek. It has been supposed to have been 
coined by JAMES, but that is not certain. It has 
been pointed out (by Bishop Bloomfield) that it is 
formed analogically, and may be regarded as one 
of the many thousands of words of the common 
dialect not preserved in such remains of anti- 
quity as are in our hands. In the rendering be- 
gold-ringed," we have endeavored to reproduce 
the effect of the Greek word the use of which, 
by James, seems to have been intended to throw 
contempt upon the dude" of Jiis time. 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 113 



GOING TO COURT. 

The power of wealth, or the display thereof, 
over the imagination has always been well 
known. It had been shown in the first churches 
of the first century, it is possible, even in their 
councils for discipline. Two parties have some 
difficulty. They cannot have recourse to a 
pagan court — that was not allowed (i Cor. 6 : i). 
They take it to the church. But one is rich and 
the other poor. When they enter, before the 
trial begins, there is a prejudgment. Some rep- 
resentative person immediately notices the en- 
trance of the party wearing the gay clothing." 
It is not simply the texture and cut of the ma- 
terials ; it is the mode in which it is carried on 
the person. [At first I translated the phrase, 
''you have recourse to him flaunting the brill- 
iantly colored clothing." The word hardly 
bears so strong a meaning as " flaunt," and yet it 
does signify something more than mere having 
one's clothing upon one.] It is that indescriba- 
ble something brought into the person's carriage 
by the consciousness of being in richer raiment 
than those about him. 

At the same moment enters his brother, his 
Christian brother, the other party to the suit. He 
is poor ; poor in spirit, as well as poor in clothes. 
He is not so well known to his brethren as " the 
party of the first part." He is a meek man and 
does not push his way forward. 



114 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



Let us look in and see what occurs. 

Immediately some attentive member of the 
court obsequiously approaches the brilliant liti- 
gant, described by James as the chrysodacty- 
lic party " [a man be-gold-ringed] and brings him 
to the best chair in the room, and says ''Seat 
yourself; here; that's nice." Then he, or some 
other person, says to the poor party, Stand you 
there." And there is a very great difference be- 
tween the **here'* and the there," perhaps so 
great that he who had spoken both words feels 
some compunction, and mitigates the treatment 
by informing the poor brother that, if he prefer 
sitting to standing, he may come and sit down 
on his footstool ! Do not the brother who stands 
and the brother in the good seat know what 
the verdict will be } Is there any use of a 
trial after this } Would not that be disgraceful 
behavior in a pagan court t How much more in 
a Christian assembly met for judicial purposes ! 
GOING TO CHURCH. 

But the warning must not be confined to be- 
havior in church courts, if there should be such 
things. It is still more applicable to assemblies 
for public worship. Indeed, in the opinion of 
some, the passage we are considering refers alto- 
gether to the congregation assembled for worship. 

No one could suspect this most sensible writer 
of inculcating any sentiment at variance with the 
duty of giving honor to whom honor is due." 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 1 1 5 

Office should command respect ; wealth is not to 
be despised ; culture is to be desired. The 
warning is against carrying caste into religious 
circles, and especially into religious worship. The 
universal equality of man before man is a Utopian 
political dream. Men are not born all equal, as 
among themselves. They are on an equality only 
before the law and before God. 

It is this broad fact, which should be univer- 
sally acknowledged and acted upon, which makes 
caste in church such a pernicious thing, especially 
when that caste is founded on mere distinctions 
of wealth. If wealth were always the accompani- 
ment of high character, or poverty the unfailing 
mark of moral unworth, then the man who could 
afford to be dressed elegantly every day, should 
be escorted to the highest seat in the synagogue, 
and the poor man should be content to sit on any 
footstool. But nothing is more generally known 
than that there is no connection between the ex- 
ternal estate and the inner character. So far is 
the reality from any such connection that we 
have all been acquainted with these several cases: 
(i) that of a really good man who, at one period 
of his life, was very poor and at another very rich, 
but always good; (2) that of another man who had 
had the same change in fortune, and who was 
always very bad and very mean ; (3) that of a 
man who was good when he was poor and bad 
when he was rich, and (4) that of a man who was 
good when he was rich, and bad when he was poor. 



Ii6 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

In a country like ours, where fortunes are made 
and lost in a day, how little claim upon our esteem 
has any man merely for his estate. So often now 
is that remark made, so often are seen the bas- 
est of men and women suddenly blazing in dia- 
monds, that among thoughtful people, the rich, 
the good rich, the really humble, true, holy, rich 
people are scarcely secured from the contempt 
which overlooks their worth in despising their 
wealth. This is a mistake on the other side. 
But it is not so often made as that to which 
James calls the attention of his brethren. 

The lesson to us, in our age, is to exclude caste 
from churches, in public worship if not elsewhere. 
Whatever makes a poor man or poor woman feel 
unwelcome in a church is a wrong against Chris- 
tian charity. If it be in the church building, or in 
the behavior of the ushers or in the arrangement 
of the pews, or in the dress of the worshippers, it is 
the very thing against which the principle set forth 
by James is levelled. If there be any seats better 
than other seats they should be open equally to 
all in turn ; if there be inferior seats they should 
be voluntarily occupied by all in turn. If ushers 
are to make any difference in escorting worship- 
pers to seats that difference should be made in 
favor of those who have the poorest appearance, 
or are known to be poor — not because they are 
poor, but because they are apt to be more sensi« 
tive, knowing the deference which mere world- 
lings show to mere wealth. 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 



117 



Perhaps, in the modern church worship, the 
greatest discouragement which the poor feel, is in 
the dress which their rich brethren and sisters 
are accustomed to exhibit in the house of God. 
It is a shame to their poor apparel. It ought to 
be a shame to any well-to-do Christian woman 
when she wears her gayest and newest costly 
clothing to public worship, and appears with dia- 
monds and other very valuable and conspicuous 
ornaments before the altars of her God. Cannot 
the Christian women of this age at length have 
courage to refuse to continue to be Sunday 
advertisements of modistes and milliners ? A 
lady in New York, whose pew was on one of the 
wall sides of the church, and who consequently 
had the congregation all on one side of her, sug- 
gested to her milliner that she put a certain bow 
on the congregation side " of her bonnet ! What 
a revelation was that ! And was it solitary ? Is 
not the preparation of many a worshipper made 
on the congregation side ? And is not the House 
of the Lord thus turned into a show-room, in 
which those who have no special dry-goods to 
exhibit are neither welcome nor at home ? 

EVIL OF PARTIALITY. 

See the evil of this partiality. In those who 
indulge it, it works a confusion of intellectual 
ideas and moral sentiments. It blunts their judg- 
ment. They form decisions on wrong grounds. 
They do injustice to others. They make un- 



Ii8 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

needed and hurtful distinctions between brethren. 
They create schisms in the body of Christ. No 
good is done, and much evil. 

ON THE SIDE OF THE POOR. 

The unreasonableness and injustice of this are 
next shown. With a tender, imploring tone, 
James solicits the attention of his readers. 

Hear, brethren mine." 

(i) Then he points out to them that those 
Christians whom they had despised were the 
favorites of heaven. If God is wise in His choice, 
are you not foolish in your discrimination } When 
He has made choice of men for any special and 
grand work in the Church, He has ordinarily 
chosen those who were poor, as the world ranks 
poverty. They had neither much land nor much 
money. They neither had great civil rank or 
high social position. The men that have sung 
the songs which are to be the solace of the sor- 
rowful and the stimulant of the faithful, have been 
taken from such low places as that from which 
David ascended to the throne. The men who 
were to propagate a fresh faith by preaching a 
new evangel, have been the men like those whom 
the Son of God found washing fishermen's nets on 
a little lake in an obscure corner of the planet. 
The men who have reformed an apostate Church, 
have been men who were born in the hut of the 
poor miner, like Martin Luther. When the Son 
of God, Himself the Lord of glory, comes to wear 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 



119 



human flesh, and so make a perpetual alliance 
with our humanity, He does not honor the 
daughter of a king or Croesus by becoming her 
babe, but condescends to be born of a virgin who 
has no special distinction, no high place, and no 
material possessions. And among His followers, 
down to the day of James, down to our day, not 
so many rich have been the servants of the Lord ; 
the poor have always been very greatly in the 
majority. As one has said, God has more rent 
and better paid Him from a smoky cottage than 
from many stately palaces, where men wallow in 
wealth, and forget God." Surely, God's favorites 
generally are not rich. 

(2) It is to be noticed that there are different 
kinds of riches. What is wealth? Is it always 
money ? What is the worth of money beyond its 
purchasing power? A dollar or a pound can pur- 
chase more at one time than at another, in one 
place than in another. If I have thousands of 
dollars or of pounds in the middle of the desert, 
where I am separated from all men, I cannot pur- 
chase therewith an ounce of bread or meat, a gill 
of coffee or water. James knew the purchasing 
power of stamped coin, but he also knew that 
other things have procuring value. Toward the 
seen ''world money makes a man rich ; but it has 
no power whatever toward the unseen world. 
There " faith " is the legal tender. A man may be 
penniless toward the world, yet able to procure all 



120 



Tlic Gospel of Cotmnon Sense, 



the things needful for his spirit, so that he may 
become wise, and great, and true, and heroic, and 
lofty, and happy. Among those who are the 
poor of the world are multitudes who a^'^ among 
the millionaires of faith, being the chosen of God. 
And God's measure of a man, and every wise 
man's measure of his fellow, is not according to 
his height, or weight, or age, or social position, or 
money, or intellect, or learning ; it is according to 
his faith, to his power of perceiving, receiving, 
and retaining truth (Romans 12 : 3). A man may 
not be very rich in the possession of much faith, 
but any faith is riches, and the more faith the more 
wealth. And often, how great is the faith of the 
otherwise poor. 

(3) Not only are many who are of the poor of 
the world" chosen of God and rich in faith, but 
they are also heirs to future greatness. Hebrew- 
Christians were still proud of their blood ; they 
were not of the Gentiles,'' the " nations " ruled by 
fools or knaves ; they were of the theocracy, the 
kingdom whose king was Jehovah. Now, James 
reminds his old friends and parishioners, that 
those Gentiles who had become their brethren in 
Christ, although they were still the poor of the 
world, were favorites of God, being at present rich 
with a riches which does not vouch for itself by 
the display of gold rings and brilliant raiment ; but 
also that they are heirs [non-apparent, indeed, but] 
real heirs of a kingdom made good to them by 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 



\2\ 



the promises of that God who to Abraham had 
conveyed by similar promises the covenant which 
had secured to his children all those things which 
they had so richly enjoyed and of which they 
were so justly proud. 

Yes, my beloved brethren, James would say ; 
they are brothers of yours ; brothers adopted 
into the family of Abraham's God through the 
Christ-Son of that God; and they are that God's 
favorites ; and, although they have not that which 
can be used as legal tender in the world's financial 
transactions, they have a currency good in all 
the streets of the city of God; a currency which 
provides for them that which is far above all 
lands and houses, and sumptuous appointments, 
and brilliant equipages ; and they are hereafter 
to sit on thrones and judge the world (i Cor. 6: 
2) ; and judge angels (i Cor. 6 : 3), and some of 
them shall judge the twelve tribes of Israel 
(Matt. 19 : 28). And these you have despised," 
because they were poor." You have done them 
injustice at your ecclesiastical tribunals, and dis- 
honor in your assemblies for public worship. Oh, 
my beloved brethren ! 

ON THE SIDE OF THE RICH. 

Then he calls their attention to the character- 
istics of those very rich persons, to gain whose 
favor they had sacrificed justice and charity. 
**They had money." Well, what effect had that 
money had upon their characters, and how had it 



122 The Gospel of Cojnrnon Sense, 



been employed by them ? As a rule, in all ages of 
the world, great riches have had a tendency to 
make men selfish, arrogant, and oppressive. What 
has not been spent on pampering themselves, the 
rich had usually employed to oppress the poor. 
Those to whom James wrote probably knew in- 
stances in which the rich Jews and rich pagans 
had ^^orded it imperiously" over poor Christians, 
drawing them into pagan courts, and using the 
power of their money to bring undeserved suffer- 
ings on the saints. 

But there was something worse than that, 
which, at least, should seem worse to every true 
Christian heart. Those rich men had blasphemed 
that beautiful and reverent name by which Chris- 
tians had been called in baptism. Of course, 
those who persecuted Christians as Christians, 
would spit upon the name by which they were 
called ; but there were others also, who had not 
put themselves to the trouble of persecuting, 
but who had blasphemed that fair name. And 
these, James would seem to say, are they for 
whose worthless favor you have put aside the 
claims of those who were saints, because those 
saints were not rich ! 

A REPLY TO THE DEFENCE OF THE PARTIALIST. 

''If in truth you fulfil that royal law 'Love thou 
thy neighbor as thyself you do beautifully. But if 
you show personal partiality y you work sin, being 
convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoso- 



llie Gospel of Covimon Sense. 



123 



ever shall keep the whole law and yet fall in one, he 
has become arrested of all. For He that said ^ Thou 
shall not commit adultery' said also 'Thou shalt 
not steal! Now, if thou dost not commit adultery, 
but dost steal, thou hast become a transgressor of the 
law. So speak and so act as those who are about 
to be judged through a law of liberty. For merci- 
less iudgment is to him who does not act mercy ; 
mercy glorieth against judgment'' (8-13). 

To see the connection of this statement with 
what went before, it is to be remembered that 
James is addressing those who were Jews by- 
birth, or under the influence of Judaizing teachers. 
To the strong things he had said he may have 
supposed some one to be replying, that in his 
attention to rich but unworthy people, he was 
simply obeying the law which commands each man 
to love his neighbor as himself! If that was so, 
it would be very much like that of which so many 
men in our age are guilty, the employment of 
Scripture for the defence of wrong. It has been 
said sometimes sneeringly that something can be 
found in the Bible for everything and every occa- 
sion. What a compliment to the fulness of the 
Bible. Yes, even the devil finds in Holy Scrip- 
ture some baits for the hooks he throws out in 
fishing. When he came tempting Jesus, he em- 
ployed inspired language. But how different are 
Bible phrases and Bible truth when quoted by 
Satan and by Jesus ! 



124 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



To meet the disingenuous defence James does 
not belittle the law. On the contrary, he main- 
tains it, and dignifies it by calling it the royal 
law." And so it is. The law of love is royal. It 
stands king among the commands, and makes all 
the others great ; it ennobles all who live in the 
air of its blessed spirit ; and it crowns life with 
beauty and glory. But the law must be revered 
and obeyed in its entirety, and should govern 
the Christian quite as much in his treatment of 
the poor as in his treatment of the rich. Re- 
spect of persons for circumstances rather than for 
their character is sinful. The Hebrew-Christians 
should have remembered Deut. i6 : 19, 20, Thou 
shalt not wrest judgment ; thou shalt not respect 
persons ; that which is altogether just shalt thou 
follow." They were convicted as sinful by the 
very law which they professed to keep. 

It is a disgrace to one's intellect to quote the 
law in justification of one's behavior in one thing, 
when the authority of that law is thrown aside 
entirely in another. It is not good to behave in 
this way. But it is beautiful to have the hand of 
that law laid evenly on the whole of a man's life. 

A GREAT PRINCIPLE. 
And that leads our writer to lay down the great 
general principle, that whosoever shall keep the 
whole law and yet fail in one as certainly lays him- 
self open to punishment as the man who has 
no regard for any portion of the commands. Un- 



TIlc Gospel of Common Sense, 125 



doubtedly the case is of so frequent occurrence in 
our day that every reader of these pages must 
know scores of people who are described by this 
passage, people who claim to be moral, who sup- 
pose themselves to be moral, who acknowledge 
the demands of the law and seem to yield it a 
kind of general obedience, and yet keep some 
one command which they deliberately and habit- 
ually violate in pubHc or in private. In James's 
day, the Rabbins taught that if a man kept a 
single one of the commandments faultlessly he 
would remain in the favor of God. This teach- 
ing found such acceptance with them that it was 
usual, in practice, to select one precept for careful 
observance, generally the law of the Sabbath, the 
law of sacrifice, or the law of tithes, looking upon 
these as the greater commands, making little ac- 
count of mercy and judgment, which were so 
much in the eyes of Jesus. Against this most de- 
moralizing teaching JAMES lays the exalted and 
uplifting doctrine of the inviolability of the zvhole 
law. 

We do well to confirm ourselves in the truth of 
this great principle. Let us consider three things. 

I. It is not merely the violation of God's law 
we are to regard, but the temper which leads 
thereto. Sinfulness is to the sinner a greater 
evil than the sin. The sin is something outside 
of himself; the sinfulness inside. He has pro- 
jected the sin out of himself, to be a black fact in 



126 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

God's universe; the sinfulness remains in him to 
be the black parent of other sinful acts. If all his 
past sins were suddenly annihilated and still his 
sinfulness remained he would be a sinner. It is 
the case of a rebel whose king may have for- 
given him, but who still nourishes the rebellious 
spirit in his heart. One single sin, presumptuously 
and habitually indulged, proves the existence of 
the spirit of rebellion to divine authority. The 
sovereign cannot tolerate any subject who holds 
himself free from any single law of the realm. 
There may be an external obedience without loy- 
alty, for loyalty implies love. He is not a patriot 
who serves his country, or keeps his country's laws, 
for fear of loss, or hope of reward. He is not a true 
child who keeps his father's commands to the let- 
ter while he hates the command and dislikes the 
father. The religion of Jesus is in the heart. If 
a man has obeyed the Heavenly Father through 
fear, Jesus desires to bring him to such a state of 
heart that his love for the Father will make 
obedience to the Father's commands spontaneous 
and delightful. If any one law be sequestrated, 
kept apart for violation, the child is as certainly 
disloyal, the man is as certainly a sinner, as if the 
whole law were set at defiance. 

2. James urges the fact that each law has been 
enacted by the authority which makes every 
other law obligatory. This unity of authority 
was set forth in the law, as quoted by Jesus 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 127 



(Mark 12 : 29), ''The Lord our God, the Lord is 
one," and responded to by the scribe with whom 
He was conversing : Of a verity. Teacher, thou 
hast well said that He is one ; and there is none 
other but He." It is not difficult, then, to per- 
ceive that all the commandments are included 
in each single commandment, the violation of 
which will put the violator under arrest. And 
it may be well to note, that this great principle 
sets every law enacted by our Heavenly Father 
in the light of sacredness, so that it seems a sole- 
cism to speak of any sins as little sins," and 
any lies as ''white lies." Much less would little 
sins be excusable, if there were little sins. They 
require less resistance, while, like the little speck 
on the skin of the fruit, they may eat in and de- 
stroy all. 

3. There is no middle ground between this 
principle and the surrender of all government. 
If a thing is permissible, a wise Ruler should not 
forbid it. If a thing is hurtful, a wise Father 
should not allow it. If, in all the whole cate- 
gory of laws, any one may be set aside, or the 
violation of any be indulged with impunity, then 
either God must select the law from which the 
divine sanction is to be lifted, or the man who de- 
sires to sin must make the selection. 

If God be supposed to select, we have the ex- 
traordinary suggestion of the Father cherishing 
disobedience in the child, the monarch affording 



128 The Gospel of Comrnon Sense, 

aid to the rebel, the only perfectly holy person 
in the universe sanctioning sin. 

But if each man is to select his pet sin to be 
indulged with impunity, he must do this either 
with or without the approbation of God. It can- 
not be the former, as that would be a case of 
God sanctioning sin, which cannot be enter- 
tained for a moment. And how are we to con- 
ceive of a man selecting a single sin for his in- 
dulgence without the permission of God ? But, 
suppose we could take in that idea ; then the 
following would result. Each man would reason 
from the liberty of the others to a larger liberty 
for himself, and so the area of rebellion would be 
perpetually enlarging. If all selected the same 
sin the terrific state of society may be imagined. 
Suppose, for instance, all men kept every other 
commandment, but all felt at liberty to violate 
the eighth in the Decalogue. The absolute 
worthlessness of all property would immedietely 
ensue, and the progress of civilization come to a 
dead halt. Suppose all carefully obeyed every 
precept of the law but the sixth, and every man 
felt at liberty to commit homicide at any time. 
It is plain that all the wit and energy of each 
man would be concentrated on the preservation 
of a life which would be worthless, because it 
would be reduced to a mere existence, denied of 
every pleasure which comes from human inter- 
course. In this case, as well as in the case of 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 129 



one man selecting lying, and another adultery, 
and another theft, and another murder, it is plain 
that human society would dissolve and the moral 
government of the universe would collapse. 

A NECESSARY PRINCIPLE. 
This is so plainly a necessary principle of all 
government that it is acknowledged in all known 
codes of human jurisprudence. That a man has 
paid every debt but one would not discharge the 
obligation to pay that debt. Many a man has 
been hanged for a solitary act of malicious homi- 
cide. To the defence of the accused might be 
brought proof of a general course of even exem- 
plary conduct. No suspicion had ever been ex- 
pressed of violation by him of any other law than 
the law against murder, and it might be urged 
that not only had the accused never been sus- 
pected of any other murder, but that no one had 
ever known him to express anything but chari- 
table and even generous sentiments. Still, while 
there remained the undeniable and overwhelm- 
ing proof of the killing of one man with malice 
aforethought, thus fixing the guilt of murder upon 
him, although he had kept the whole law, having 
failed, fallen, offended the law, in one instance, 
he has become arrested of all." A man that 
has been hanged for a single murder has suffered 
as much as could be inflicted upon him if he had 
violated a thousand times every principle of con- 
stitutional law, and every enactment of statute 
law. 



130 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



A GUARDED EXPRESSION. 

Now, let US mark that this uncommonly sen- 
sible pastor does not teach his scattered parish- 
ioners that a man who has committed one sin is 
as guilty as if he had committed a thousand ; nor 
that a man who has violated one commandment 
is as bad a man as if he had daily set the whole 
decalogue at defiance and shaped his life to throw 
contempt on the whole body of divine law. 
Neither must he be supposed to teach that there 
is but one grade of criminality, which is reached 
by every sinner in his first sin, nor that all viola- 
tions of God's law are of equal heinousness. But 
he does teach that one sin, any one sin, is as 
certainly a violation of God's law, representing 
God's authority and majesty, as would be any 
form of casting off the soul's allegiance to God. 

What is still more, the man who has done this, 
who has sequestrated to himself some department 
of morals in which he has regarded himself as free 
from the authority of God, so that he has com- 
mitted some certain sin habitually, as if it were a 
permissible indulgence, is not the man who can 
claim to be saved by the law; and this is precisely 
the case James had in hand. The persons whose 
conduct he was arraigning, justified themselves by 
an appeal to the law, whose authority they had 
thrown off. It was as if a murderer should plead 
for discharge on the ground that he had never 
stolen. His argument would be that the strict 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 131 

observance of the eighth commandment set him 
free to disregard the sixth. 

James shows his readers what Paul showed his, 
namely, that by the deeds of the law no man can 
be shown to be just, since all men have stumbled 
at some point, and so are under arrest for violation 
of law. We cannot be saved if we reject the 
mercy of God, and insist upon resting our case on 
perfect obedience to a perfect law. When a man 
rejects the mercy of God, he must abide by the 
legal judgment of God. 

But the persons to whom James wrote had ac- 
cepted God's mercy in Jesus Christ. To a be- 
liever the law is not grievous ; it is his life. To 
one out of Christ the law is a bondage, a restraint. 
He does good, he ever does right, by a con- 
straint from without. He is drawn to duty by the 
law, as if a man were pulled along the right road 
by ropes wherewith he had been bound. The 
true believer is impelled to doing right and doing 
good from an inner impulse, an impulse of love for 
God created by the mercy of God. It is a law to 
him, but it is a law of love, and James says it is 
a law of liberty. His service is perfect freedom 
whom we love to obey. 

choose mercy. 

What shall we choose } Let us choose mercy. 
We cannot abide the judgment of God in its 
strictness, if we solicit a verdict for our lives by 
the demands of the law. Let us throw ourselves 



132 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 



on God's mercy. Awfully holy as is the judg- 
ment of God, the mercy of God is more awfully 
beautiful and glorious. It triumphs over judg- 
ment, as a superior over an inferior. The Heav- 
enly Father glories in it more than in judgment. 

The practical moral effect upon our conduct 
should be to lead us to be more than just and im- 
partial, not only doing right by all men, but as 
we have opportunity doing "good unto all men, 
especially to them that are of the household of 
faith." And we must never forget that as mercy 
is the quality of His nature which is most delight- 
ful to God, that quality in Himself in which He 
most glories, so mercilessness in man is the 
thing which our Lord will least tolerate, because 
it is the thing He most abhors. 



VI. 



Faith and Works. 

CHAPTER II: 14-26. 
JUSTIFICATION. 

JAMES proceeds to inculcate holy and char- 
itable living, as important to assure a be- 
liever that he is a believer, and to justify 
his faith to the world by proving (i) that he really 
holds the faith which he professes and (2) that 
that faith is a living and fruitful power in his 
spirit. 

That we may have before us the whole state- 
ment, let us read critically the entire passage from 
the fourteenth verse to the end of the second 
chapter. 

" What profit is it^ brothers mine^ if one claim to 
have faith, but have not works ? If a brother or 
sister become naked and lacking daily food, and one 
among you say to them, 'Go in peace, be zvarmed 
and fattened,' while ye do not give to them the 
things needful for the body, — what profit is it? 
Thus also that faith, seeing it has not works, is 
dead, being by itself. But says one 'Thou hast 
faith and I have works. Show me that faith of 
thine by thy works, and I will show thee by my 
works that faith of mine. Thou believest that 



134 The Gospel of Common Se7tse, 

God is one ? Well doe st thou ; even the demons be- 
lieve^ and shudder! But art thou willing to knoWy 
O empty ^nan^ that the faith without works is dead? 
Abraham^ the father of us — was he not by works 
made just^ in offering his son Isaac upon the altar ? 
Thou seest that faith was co-operating with his 
works, and by works the faith made complete ; and 
the Scripture was fulfilled, zvhich said ^Abraham 
put his faith in God and it was counted to him 
for righteousness [uprightness'] and he was called 
God' S'friend! You see the7i that by works a man 
is made upright [righteous] arid not by faith only. 
And likewise also was not Rahab the harlot made 
just by works, receiving the messengers and send- 
ing them out another way ? For as the body with- 
out the spirit is dead, so also faith without works 
is deady 

We come now to a much-discussed part of the 
Epistle of James, upon which great strength has 
been needlessly wasted and many profitless words 
have been spoken and written. May we be saved 
from adding thereto ! 

JAMES AND PAUL. 

In the first place, there has been the sinister 
criticism that the words of J AMES antagonize 
those of Paul, and, in the second place, that they 
were intended to correct the teachings of the 
Apostle. The groundlessness of all this appears 
(i) from the fact that a careful examination of the 
paths travelled by the two writers, beginning at 



The Gospel of Common ^ense, 135 



different stations, come together in the end; that 
is, that while treating two different subjects, in 
fundamentals they agree ; (2) that this epistle can 
not be regarded as a criticism upon the Epistle 
to the Romans, seeing that Paul's letter is sup- 
posed to have been published after the Epistle of 
James, and that there is no historic evidence that 
James ever saw or heard of the Epistle to the 
Romans during his whole hfe; and (3) those who 
believe that both writers wrote as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost, know that there must 
be agreement in all essentials, and that any ap- 
pearance of disagreement, if there be such, must be 
due to the defective intelligence of the reader. 

Let us notice the classes of persons severally 
addressed by these writers. They are not all of 
one class. When Paul is writing in regard to 
justification by faith, he is considering the class of 
unregenerate men, men who neither have nor claim 
perfect uprightness but are supposed to be sincere- 
ly and anxiously asking the question, how a man 
is to be justified with God. jAMES is considering 
the class of men who are regenerate, or suppose 
themselves so, who believe that they have been 
justified as to God and must now establish their 
claim to righteousness with their fellow-men. 

He had already in the former chapter shown that 
he held what is called the doctrine of justification 
by faith," only he had chosen to express it, or per- 
haps it were better to say that he naturally ex- 



136 The Gospel of Common Sense, 

pressed it, in the language of his brother Jesus, in 
phraseology common to two men who had grown 
up in the same family. He had said that our re- 
generation had its source in God, the Giver of 
good gifts (as Jesus had said (Matt. 7 : 11) How 
much more shall your Father in heaven give good 
things to them that ask Him ! ) and that the 
instrument was the word of God (as Jesus had 
said (John 17: 17) when praying to the Father, 

Sanctify them through Thy truth, Thy word is 
truth'') and that the condition was our faith; re- 
ceive with meekness the ingrafted word which is 
able to save your souls,'' (as Jesus had said ''that 
whosoever believed in Him may have endless life 
(John 3 : 15), and (John 6: 47), He that beheveth 
on Me hath endless life "). 

The comparison of the deliverances of these 
two inspired men of God shows that if the doc- 
trine of justification by faith " is set forth by 
Paul logically, the same doctrine is set forth by 
James more evangelically ; that is, less in the 
language of the schools and more in the language 
attributed by the Evangelists to Jesus ; the one 
addressing the logical understanding of the un- 
regenerate man, the other appealing to the heart 
of the professed Christian. 

THEOLOGY AND ETHICS. 

It may be profitable to see how the great theo- 
logical teacher agrees with the great ethical 
teacher. It would be doing injustice to Paul 



TIic Gospel of Common Sense, 137 

to suppose, as many do, that he taught that 
nothing was necessary beyond a mere intellect- 
ual assent to the doctrines of Christianity, that 
he thus yielded to the ruinous teaching of some of 
the Jewish rabbis and the disastrous belief of the 
great mass of the Jews of his own day, namely, 
that assent to the truth is all that is requisite for 
salvation, thus inculcating that faith which JAMES 
demonstrates to be *Mead." Paul's faith" is 
represented in the vivacious language of Luther : 

Oh, faith is a lively, busy, active thing, so that it 
is impossible for it not to be ceaselessly working 
good ; it does not ask if good works are to be 
done, but before it asks it has done them, and is 
ever doing." 

So Paul says things like these : If I had all 
faith, so as to remove mountains, and have not 
love, I am nothing" (i Cor. 13:2). And '^Now 
abide, faith, hope, love ; and the greatest of these 
is love" (i Cor. 13: 13). And ''Stand fast in 
the faith ; quit you like men ; be strong ; let all 
that ye do be done in love " (i Cor. 16 : 13). And 

Faith worketh by love" (Gal. 5 : 6j, which is 
simply another way of putting James's teaching 
on this subject. A faith that does not work is no 
faith, and a faith that works, but does not work 
by love is a profitless faith. It is now quite plain 
that when Paul is teaching that in order to stand 
uprightly before God one must have faith, and 
puts it thus (Rom. 3 : 28) : ''We reckon that a 



138 The Gospel of Common ^ense. 

man is made just by faith apart from the works 
of law," he is teaching that a man is regenerated 
not by what he does in striving to avoid a viola- 
tion of the law, but by his faith in God's words. 
And we must not fail to notice, that what Paul 
calls the works of the law" are very different 
from the works of which James is writing. The 
former were the things done by an unregenerate 
man, from obedience to the law and for the profit 
of the doer, who expected thereby to be justified; 
the latter, the things done by a regenerate man 
from love, for the benefit of others. 

James plainly believed that there was no faith 
which does not produce such good works as these. 
If a man supposed himself to be justified by his 
faith, how is his faith to be justified } How is he 
to be sure he has the faith that makes him just 
before God } It is by the works of love produced 
by that faith. That faith will surely produce 
those works. It could not exist without work- 
ing, so if no works of love appear, it is manifest 
that no living faith exists. 

This is seen in the opening words of his address 
on this subject. He is not speaking of a man 
who really has faith, but of a man who claims to 
have the faith he does not possess. He states 
and examines only the claim. As his brother 
Jesus had put the question as to what profit there 
is gaining the world if the soul be lost, and Paul 
had put the question as to what profit there is in 



The Gospel of Common ^e/ise. 



139 



works which might help others but were devoid 
of the grace of charity, so James put the question 
as to what profit there is in making a claim when 
the claimant can point to nothing whatever that 
can be helpful in substantiating that claim. What 
profit, what help, to him who makes it or to 
others, is a claim that something is a living thing, 
when it never presents any of the phenomena of 
life, never sees, hears, feels, speaks, or moves ? 

It is to be kept in mind that James is not 
speaking of the faith that justifies, that is, that 
makes a man just before God, apart from those 
works of the law which the man does (which is 
the faith Paul speaks of in Rom. 3 : 28,) nor of 
faith in general. He does not ask, Can faith 
save him .'^ " But he does ask, Can that faith 
save him V What faith } A worthless, inopera- 
tive faith. There is often a strong assertion in a 
question. Indeed, sometimes it is the most for- 
cible way of making an assertion. James plainly 
intended that the question should have the force 
of a very emphatic assertion. If Paul had ever 
read this question in the Epistle of James, his 
answer would probably have been an emphatic 
declaration : No, such a faith as that could save 
no man ; neither can any other faith than that 
faith which worketh through love, as I said in my 
epistle to the Galatians " (Gal. 5 : 6). There is 
no value in any faith, or any charity, or any work 
which does not "save," which does not preserve 
a man's character. 



140 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

You believe in God the Father Almighty ; do 
you ? You believe in Jesus Christ His Son, who 
tasted death for every man ; do you ? You be- 
lieve in the sentence which was so often on the 
lips of Jesus Christ, It is more blessed to give 
than to receive " ; do you ? We shall see whether 
that faith exist or whether only your claim to it 
exist, whether you possess the faith, that faith 
that works by love, or are merely an empty pro- 
fessor. 

Such may be supposed to be the address of 
James to the professor of that faith in Jesus which 
justifies a man, which saves a man, which makes 
a man fit to live and fit to die. 

THE PRACTICAL TEST. 

Then our writer paints a picture. The claim- 
ant to saving faith has means. He is not a pau- 
per. Two persons are known to him, a man and 
a woman. A woman in want is a very sad sight ; 
perhaps a man in want is sadder. When a man 
cannot support himself by reason of any providen- 
tial hindrance, we know that whatever manhood 
is in him must suffer intensely. He says to him- 
self, 'VA woman cannot be expected to support 
herself, but I'm a man ; and it's disgraceful for a 
man to be dependent for his subsistence upon 
another." This professor of faith finds a maUy 
a real true man, not a heathen, not an infidel, not 
a blasphemer, not an impostor, but a good, true 
man, a brother in Christ, who is no tramp, who 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 141 



has never begged, who does not even beg from 
the professor, who has toiled with his own hands, 
providing things that are honest in the sight of 
God ; but now he is down in the world. He has 
no longer strength to do enough work each day 
to gain that day's bread. And his clothing is 
insufficient. It has been washed and patched 
until it has become too worn to keep him com- 
fortable, and too shabby to allow him to go 
into decent society. And the " professor " says. 
Brother, go in peace," and shows him out. The 
'^go'' is plainly from the heart, and the ''in 
peace is manifestly cant. And next day, the 
professor says that same to a woman, who is a 
woman of good fame and faith, being the profes- 
sor's "sister," that is if the blood of Jesus runs in 
him. But she is deeply reduced. Go in peace. 
Be warmed. Be fattened," says the claimant to 
saving faith. But the brother" gets no food 
from him, and the sister" goes off shivering in 
her thin garments. Neither the brother nor the 
sister carries away anything which will make life 
more tolerable. 

Next day, James is supposed to have met the 
professor of religion " with whom he has had 
argument, and catechizes him on the result of 
yesterday's interview. You had faith, had you } 
Well, what profit was it } It did you no good. 
It did not save you from being a mean, heartless, 
unbrotherly man. It did not profit the brother, 



142 The Gospel of Common Sense, 

nor did it profit the sister. It did not satisfy 
their hunger, nor protect them from the cold. 
It was helpful neither inwardly nor outwardly. 
Your faith is dead. If it were not, it would give 
proof of life ; but it is as much alive as a bulb 
buried in a stone tomb, which, being separated 
from earth, and light, and the fresh air, is soon a 
dead thing, if ever it were alive." 

FACTS OF EXPERIENCE. 

Here our writer points to most important facts 
in human experience, namely, (i) that that which 
ceases to grow begins to decay, and (2) that a 
continuance of life without exercise is impracti- 
cable. Let the case be supposed of a man sud- 
denly endowed with the liveliest conceivable 
faith. If that faith is not exercised it dies. No 
man can long believe in God the Father Al- 
mighty who goes weeks and months behaving as 
if he and all the universe were orphaned. No 
man can long believe that Jesus Christ is his Sa- 
vior who does not allow Jesus Christ to save him. 
No man can long believe in the brotherhood of 
man who never .reats any other man as if he 
were his brother. In this it appears that faith 
without works is dead. 

But this pertinacious, do-nothing professor oj 
religion is met by a sincere Christian, who says to 
him, '^Thou hast faith and I have works/' The 
suggestion seems to be that, for a moment and 
for the argument, we may admit that faith and 



The Gospel of Coinmon Sense. 



143 



good works may exist apart. Then, how is the 
inoperative faith to prove its existence ? How is 
it possible to demonstrate the existence of life in 
the absence of vital phenomena ? " Prove your 
faith," says the true Christian. You know that 
there is no other way than by good works ; but 
you admit that you have no good works, nay, 
that you even scorn them; you cannot, therefore, 
show your faith." A true Christian faith always 
produces good works and thus has its creden- 
tials. A man's faith is invisible ; so is the vege- 
table vitality in the sap of an apple-tree. How 
are we to know that the sap is in the tree and is 
alive, if no fruit nor even blossoms come 

The true Christian interlocutor goes on to tight- 
en the grip on the conscience of the man who 
professes to have a faith which he acknowledges 
to be inoperative. He argues thus : You be- 
lieve that faith, and faith alone, the mere intel- 
lectual assent of the mind to the truth, will save 
a man. Well, let us try it. The fundamental 
truth of religion is that indispensable truth with- 
out which no religion, true or false, can exist, 
namely, there is a God. Or any true religion the 
basal truth is God is one. You believe that. It 
is well. But does faith in that immense truth 
save } Your proposition is, that if any one be- 
lieve any great religious truth he is saved. But 
the demons, who are as orthodox as the arch- 
angel on the fundamental doctrine of religion, 



144 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

are not saved. Then one may believe and not 
be saved. The faith of the demons produces no 
good works, but many evil works. They believe 
and shudder ; they do not rejoice in believing. 
They believe ; they were prompt to assert their 
belief in the Son of God when He was upon earth. 
Were any of them saved ? No ; they were all 
cast out. The most conspicuous example in the 
universe of a firmly fixed faith in the foundation 
truth of religion, is to be seen in the most thor- 
oughly unsaved persons in the universe — the lost 
demons ; they who have a dead faith, are them- 
selves as dead as the demons." 

THE CASE OF ABRAHAM. 

Then, either James or the Christian who is 
supposed to be laboring with the self-deceived 

professor of religion," who was a Hebrew-Chris- 
tian, presses him still further. He is addressed 
as an empty man, in whose hands are neither 
seed for sowing nor gathered sheaves. In such a 
condition, he is asked whether he is willing to 
know that his inoperative faith is dead 'i The 
hearer was a descendant of Abraham, who is at 
the other pole from the demons. Abraham was 

justified"; no one questions that. Why does 
no one question that } For the following reasons : 
He was called out of Ur of the Chaldees, and he 
believed that he should go (Gen. 12). How 
did he know, and how were others to know, that 
he believed that he should go from his country, 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 145 



and his kindred, and his father's house, after God 
had promised to make him a great nation, and in 
him to bless all the families of the earth ? Be- 
cause he departed, as the Lord had said unto 
him." He might have staid in Ur of the Chal- 
dees for a century, professing to have faith in 
God ; but neither man nor God would have dis- 
covered it. But the long and tiresome journey 
from Haran in Mesopotamia, to Sichem, near the 
Mediterranean Sea, under the depressing influ- 
ence of exile from his native place, a bereave- 
ment of which scarcely any man in Christendom 
has the least conception in this century, in which 
almost every man dies where he was not born — 
that journey justified him. 

That faith which works grows stronger after 
this exhibition of his faith. The Lord made a 
fresh covenant with him to give him and his chil- 
dren the land in which he was. And the years 
went by, and there was no child born to Abra- 
ham ; but while he brooded over the promise to 
his seed, the promise that he should become a 
great nation, there was no sign of the coming 
first child. And still his estate grew richer, and 
he fought his battles out to victory, his faith 
clinging to the promise of a great family, while 
yet there was no child. And the years went, 
and Abraham was ninety and nine years old, and 
God's promise was repeated, and yet no child 
came. But as he closed his century the child 
came. Isaac was born. 



146 The Gospel of Common Sense, 

But who was to know that Abraham had been 
faithful all this time ? And as Isaac grew, who was 
to know that he was a man justified by faith? 
God knew that faith without works, if it were not 
dead, would die ; and without works would remain 
forever incomplete. And so the divinely ap- 
pointed test came. And Abraham's faith co-oper- 
ated with his works ; and the offering of his Isaac 
completed his faith. So the Scripture was ful- 
filled which said (Gen. 15 : 6), ''He believed the 
Lord and it was counted to him for righteous- 
ness.*' Why was it so ''counted?" Because it 
was righteousness. Faith in God is righteousness, 
and makes a man righteous. Men often impute 
to a man that which he really has not. The Lord 
can never make any such mistake. When he ac- 
counts that a man has anything, the man has that 
thing. James believed that a man is justified by 
faith, but, as he says, not "by faith only." Paul 
believed that a man is justified by works, but not 
"by works only," for whatsoever is not of faith is 
sin (Romans 14: 23). It is to be noticed that the 
same passage, from Gen. 15:6, is employed by the 
Apostle Paul (Romans 4 : 4), in his argument on ^ 
justification by faith. 

THE PHILOTHEANS. 

Not only did God count Abraham's faith for 
righteousness, but after his offering of Isaac, men 
had such respect for Abraham that they called him 
"God's-friend," a Philothean. Mark, he is not 



The Gospel of Cormnon Sense, 147 

called ''the friend of God" so as to separate him 
from all men of faith, but the name given him as- 
signs him to a class of persons into which they 
come, and only they, whose faith in God is exhib- 
ited to the world by works of love toward their 
fellow-men ; they are all Philotheans, none other 
can justly be called by that excellent name. It 
began with Abraham. It was reinstituted by Jesus 
the Lord (John 15:8): Herein is My Father glo- 
rified, that ye bear much fruit ; and so shall ye be 
My disciples. Even as the Father hath loved Me, 
I also have loved you : abide ye in My love. If 
ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My 
love ; even as I have kept My Father's command- 
ments, and abide in His love. These things have 
I spoken unto you, that My joy may be in you, 
and that your joy may be fulfilled. This is My 
commandment, that ye love one another, even as 
I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than 
this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 
Ye are My friends, if ye do the things which I 
command you. No longer do I call you slaves; 
for the slave knoweth not what his lord doeth : 
but I have called you friends ; for all things 
that I heard from My Father I have made known 
unto you. Ye did not choose Me, but I chose 
you, and appointed you, that ye should go and 
bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide.'' 
THE CASE OF RAHAB. 
James had selected the most splendid instance 
among men, and that which above every human 



148 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



name would attract the attention and command 
the respect of those to whom he wrote. That his 
argument might be complete, he now cites the 
case of a Gentile, who was a woman, who was 
a harlot. To her there had come an account of 
Jehovah's terrible things in Egypt and stupen- 
dous doings in the desert, and what He had done 
to the two kings of the Amorites, that were on 
the other side of Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom He 
had utterly destroyed. Knowing His power and 
His promise, she believed Him. Before she had 
seen one of the people to whom she believed that 
Jehovah had given her land, she had lived in 
secret faith. If she had had opportunity to dis- 
play that faith in works of goodness and had not 
done so, her faith would have died. No one 
knew it. But when the time came in which she 
could show her faith by her works, she received 
and delivered the spies of Joshua as the messen- 
ger of the true God, she made a profession of her 
faith, she abandoned her former sinful life, at- 
tached herself to the people of God, and spent 
the rest of her life in the service of Jehovah. Of 
what use would her faith have been if unaccom- 
panied by good works } Would she have been 
saved } On the contrary, she would have been 
lost, and the whole force of her life would have 
been with her. A dead faith cannot quicken a 
spirit into holy living. But her works, which 
sprang from faith, justified her faith. In her 



Tlie Gospel of C nimon Sense, 149 



ignorance of the high demand for veracity made 
by her new religion, she had lied ; but her faith 
worked by love and purified her heart, and she 
was admitted into the glorious company of the 
Philotheans, and died in the midst of Israel, a 
true daughter of Abraham. 

FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON'S ILLUSTRATION. 

After all, do sincere and simple hearts make 
any trouble out of the apparent contradiction ? 
Is it not cynical, sinister, bent souls, or men who 
delight to put off their duty on any plea, even 
the slightest, who are glad to find what can be 
raised in an excuse for wrong-doing ? Voltaire 
could find something to sneer at in the seeming 
opposition of Paul and JAMES, but not such a 
clear-headed, lofty-spirited man as Frederick W. 
Robertson. The latter says, Suppose I say, 

* A tree cannot be struck without thunder that 
is true, for there is never destructive lightning 
without thunder. But again, if I say, * The tree 
was struck by lightning without thunder,' that is 
true too, if I mean that the lightning alone 
struck it without the thunder striking it. Yet 
read the two assertions together, and they seem 
contradictory. So, in the same way, Paul says, 

* Faith justifies without works,' — that is, faith 
alone is that which justifies us, not works. But 
James says, * Not a faith which is without works.' 
There will be works with faith, as there is thun- 
der with lightning ; but just as it is not the thun- 
der, but the lightning, the lightning without the 



1^0 The Gospel of Coimnon Sense, 



thunder, that strikes the tree, so it is not the 
works which justify. Put it in one sentence — 
faith alone justifies, but not the faith which is 
alone. Lightning alone strikes, but not the light- 
ning which is alone, without thunder ; for that is 
only summer lightning, and harmless.'* 

ARCHBISHOP WHATELY'S ILLUSTRATION. 
Practical life sweeps away the cobwebs of soph- 
istry. Archbishop Whately tells the follow- 
ing instructive story. Two gentlemen were one 
day crossing the river in a ferry-boat. A dispute 
about faith and works arose, one saying that 
good works were of small importance, and that 
faith was everything, the other asserting the 
contrary. Not being able to convince each other, 
the ferryman, an enlightened Christian, asked 
permission to give his opinion. Consent being 
granted, he said : *^ I hold in my hands two oars. 
That in my right hand I call ^ faith,' the other, in 
my left, * works.* Now, gentlemen, please to 
observe, I pull the oar of faith, and pull that 
alone. See ! the boat goes round and round, and 
the boat makes no progress. I do the same with 
the oar of works, and with a precisely similar 
result—no advance. Mark ! I pull both together, 
we go on apace, and in a very few minutes we 
shall be at our landing-place. So, in my humble 
opinion," he added, faith without works, or 
works without faith, will not suffice. Let there 
be both, and the haven of eternal rest is sure to 
be reached." 



VII. 



Temptations of the Tongue. 

CHAPTER III., I-18. 

FANATICISM AND THE TONGUE. 

THE fourth form of temptation is presented 
in the third chapter : ''Do not become many 
of you teachers^ brethren mine, since ye 
know that we shall receive heavier judgment. For, 
in many things we all stumble. If any one stum- 
ble not in wjrdy the same is a perfect man, and 
able also to bridle the whole body. Behold into 
their mouths we put the h)rse-bits, that they may 
become obedient unto us, and we turn about their 
whole body. Behold also the ships, which though 
they may be so great and are driven by rough 
winds y are turned about by a very small rudder, 
whither the impulse of the steersman may will ; so 
the tongue also is a little rnember, and boasts 
greatly. Behold how a spark kindles a great forest. 
And the tongue is fire ; that world of iniquity I 
Thus the tongue is placed among our members, 
which stains the whole body and sets on fire the 
frame of nature and is stt on fire of hell. For 
every nature of wild beasts, and of flying things 
and of creeping things, and of sea-monsters is sub- 
dued and has been subdued unto human nature ; 



152 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 



but the tongue <>/ men no one can subdue — a tiir- 
bulent evil, full of death-bearing poison ; with it 
we praise God, even the Father, andwit hit we curse 
mtn made in the image of God : from the same 
m mth come forth a eu.ogy and a curse. No neces- 
sity, my brethren^ that these things sho. Id be so. 
Does a fountain from the same opening send forth 
sweet and bitter ? My brethren, can a fig tree pro- 
duce olive Sy or a vine figs ? So cannot salt water 
yield sweets 

In urging the necessity of a faith which gives 
demonstrations of its existence by the good 
works of humaneness which it performs, James 
seems to have seen that the Hebrew-Christians 
to whom this epistle was primarily addressed — 
and the Holy Spirit seems to have seen that 
those who should read the epistle in subsequent 
ages — might count words as seeds, as in one 
sense they really are, and so might turn from 
good deeds which cost something to words which 
cost nothing, and so come to have neither an in- 
ner life of faith nor outer life of beneficence. 

The Hebrew-Christians to whom the epistle 
was addressed, were peculiarly exposed to this 
temptation, as the itch for teaching was prevalent 
among the Israelites in the time of Jesus. In an 
apocryphal book entitled **The Ascension of 
Isaiah the Prophet," supposed by its editor, Dr. 
Lawrence, to have been written near the be- 
ginning of the propagation of the Christian 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 153 

faith, there occur these words (ch. 3 : 23, 24), 
in a passage regarding the Messiah, quoted by 
Barnes : In those days shall many be attached 
to office, destitute of wisdom ; multitudes of iniq- 
uitous elders and pastors, injurious to their flocks 
and addicted to rapine, nor shall the holy pastors 
themselves diligently discharge their duties." 

This must have been most exasperatingly true 
when the Christ was on earth, or else He could 
never have uttered that terrific indictment which 
fills the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, one of 
the most fearful passages in all the Holy Scrip- 
tures, the thunder-burst of whose invective closes 
with that shower of tenderness, O Jerusalem, 
Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and 
stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often 
would I have gathered thy children together, 
even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her 
wings, and ye would not ! " 

THE TONGUE IN PUBLIC. 

When the early churches were formed, the 
Hebrew-Christians had trouble from this itch of 
teaching, which led so many incompetent and 
improper persons to undertake teaching and 
preaching. Paul found false apostles, deceitful 
workers" at Corinth (2 Cor. 11: 13); dogs, 
evil workers," in the church at Philippi, which 
he so loved (Phil. 5: 2), and false brethren" in 
the churches of Galatia (Gal. 2). He warns his 
young brother and friend, Timothy (Tim. i) 



1 54 The GospeC of Common Sense. 

against such as had turned aside to vain jang- 
ling, desiring to be teachers of the law, under- 
standing neither what they say nor whereof they 
afifirm." All these are denounced, in the last 
book of the sacred canon, as being of the syna- 
gogue of Satan " (Rev. 2: 9). 

No wonder, then, that the wise James gives 
special attention to guarding his brethren against 
becoming conceited, and, having neither faith nor 
works, supposing that they meet the require- 
ments of religious life by cultivating a dicta- 
torial speech, and putting on magisterial airs. 

We may suppose, first of all, that James had 
reference to those who desired to enter upon the 
office of pubHc teachers, and whose zeal without 
knowledge impelled them to places for which 
they were not prepared. It is a great thing to 
be a preacher of the Gospel. Every Christian 
man may well covet it as one of the best gifts. 
The earnest desire of every Christian parent 
should be that his boys may be church ministers, 
and his daughters become the wives of pastors. 
He should do all he can to prepare them for 
these positions, if such be the will of God, as 
indicated by His providence. They will not all 
become so ; but a preparation of spirit for the 
ministry of the word would be the best prepara- 
tion for any other position in the Church ; and 
the Lord would lead away from the pulpit to 
other Christian fields all conscientious Christian 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 155 



men who stood ready to do the Lord's will every- 
where, and who selected their positions in the 
Church not in view of any personal and worldy 
advantage, but in view of the judgment-seat of 
Christ. 

To that tribunal we are pointed by the word 
Avhich is translated ''condemnation." We all 
"stand before the judgment-seat of Christ" 
(Rom. 14 : 10). If all who are now in the minis- 
try of the word, when deciding what course to 
pursue, had placed themselves conscientiously be- 
fore the great Judge, to learn from Him, as shall 
be learned at the last judgment, whether they 
should become preachers, may we not in all 
charity suppose that there are many now preach- 
ing who would be doing much more for Christ's 
work in the world, on farms and wharves, in 
shops and factories, pleading law or practising 
physic ."^ 

There are those who doubtless will be swift to 
give an affirmative answer to that question, as 
there are many who are very ready to find fault 
with the poverty of the pulpit ; but, on the other 
hand, may not the question be put pointedly to 
such persons, and to thousands of other men in 
the Church, who are now in the wrong business, 
whether, if all worldly considerations had been 
put aside and they had settled the question in 
the light of the Christ's white throne of judgment, 
they would not now be preaching the truth as it 



156 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



is in Christ with power surpassing many who are 
accredited teachers of the word ? 

In any case the place of teacher is to be as- 
sumed very deliberately and conscientiously in the 
remembrance that he who receives it receives a 
great increase of responsibility; and if he fail of 
his duty, a greater condemnation. 

THE TONGUE IN PRIVATE. 

But manifestly we should not confine James'S 
words to public and authorized teachers. They 
form a very small section of those who were prob- 
ably in the mind of the writer whose words we 
are studying. There was a disease prevalent in 
the Church in the days of jAMES, which, in many 
places, is a raging epidemic in our own times. It 
is an internal disease discovered by its eruption, 
which appears ordinarily on the tongue, and some- 
times on the right hand that holds pen or pencil. 
It proves the presence, in the afflicted individual, 
of much'teachingness y a disposition to be always 
taking the chair, much given to finding fault, 
correcting, playing the censor, putting on profes- 
sional airs, having an opinion on every subject, 
with great readiness to give it dogmatically, dic- 
tatorially, pontifically, as being paramount, final, 
infallible, from which there is no appeal. 

Almost every one must have noticed displays 
of this in social and business circles, and in re- 
ligious assemblies, whether met for counsel or 
worship. It is a dangerous and hurtful habit, to 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 157 



be corrected by those who have formed it and to 
be avoided by those who have not. 

THE GREAT RESPONSIBILITY. 

Against it James warns us, first, by the great 
responsibility taken by its indulgence. If we as- 
sume to know enough to teach, we can never 
plead ignorance when we are called to account. 
If we should make a mistake, our assumption 
of superior knowledge will probably lead many 
astray, and so i*ender our lives increasingly in- 
jurious. That is the first reason for not rushing 
into the teacher's responsibility. Another is, 
that we all make mistakes. James is very 
modest. He does not unnecessarily condemn 
himself. The we is conciliatory. He is ad- 
dressing his brethren. He remembers that he 
himself is not faultless. A study of one's own 
manifold frailties of character and temper should 
make one very careful in reviewing what seems 
to be the faults of others, and in sitting in judg- 
ment upon them. Especially should it guard us 
against utterance of criticism and judgment. 
DANGERS OF THE TONGUE. 

This naturally leads to a consideration of the 
dangers of the tongue, and the evils produced by 
much speaking. There is no member of the hu- 
man body so important as the tongue : nor hand, 
nor foot, nor ear, nor eye. With nothing can we 
do so much good and so much evil. When a 
certain ancient king sent an animal to be offered 



158 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



to the gods, he requested that the best and the 
worst should be returned to him, and the wise 
priest sent the tongue of the victim back to the 
king. 

The heathen philosopher Xanthus, expecting 
some friends to dine with him, ordered his ser- 
vant iEsop to provide the best things the market 
could supply. Tongues only were provided ; and 
these the cook was ordered to serve up with dif- 
ferent sauces. Course after course was supplied, 
each consisting of tongue. '^Did I not order 
you,'^ said Xanthus, in a violent passion, to buy 
the best victuals the market afforded?" ^'And 
have I not obeyed your orders?" said ^sop. 
" Is there anything better than a tongue ? Is 
not the tongue the bond of civil society, the or- 
gan of truth and reason, and the instrument of 
our praise and adoration of the gods ?" Xanthus 
ordered him to go again to the market on the 
morrow, and buy the worst things he could find, 
^sop went, and again he purchased tongues, 
which the cook was ordered to serve as before. 

What ! tongues again ? " exclaimed Xanthus. 
^'Most certainly," rejoined ^sop ; the tongue 
is surely the worst thing in the world. It is the 
instrument of all strife and contention, the in- 
ventor of lawsuits, and the source of division and 
wars ; it is the organ of error, of lies, calumny 
and blasphemies." 



Tlie Gospel of Common Sense, 159 



THE MENTAL TUBERCLE. 

Speech is the great good gift. There is a little 
gland, found only in the human species, called 
the mental tubercle. No animal without that can 
speak. It is present only with the animal which 
thinks. What cannot think cannot speak. The 
ancient Greeks, by using the same word for speech 
and thought, seem to have anticipated this later 
discovery ; and the modern German was as wise 
as he was witty when he said, I will believe 
that any animal thinks when he tells me so." 

So close is this connection that James says that 
any man who neither stumbles in his speech nor 
causes any one else to stumble, is a perfect man ; 
for the reason that he must be able to control his 
whole person if he have perfect control over his 
tongue. And this will be manifest if we consider 
the following : 

(1) That the tongue is the organ for the utter- 
ance of thoughts and emotions. That good and 
not evil may come, that the utterance may be 
sweet and not bitter, there must be such control 
of the head and heart as that the bitter bad will 
be held back in the soul and the sweet good will 
be sent forward to the tongue. 

(2) That the thought and emotion, until the 
tongue give them utterance, can do no harm out- 
side ourselves. Before utterance they may be re- 
vised, corrected, changed ; but once uttered, they 
belong no more to us. The tongue is the Rubi- 



i6o The Gospel of Common Sense. 

con of thought. It is the tongue that gives life 
and power for good or evil to the thoughts of 
men. 

(3) That the reaction of speech is important. 
A man may speak so as to soothe himself and in- 
crease his own reasonableness, meekness, and 
sweetness ; or, he may lash himself into fury and 
talk wildly until he becomes wild. We have 
spoken before of the effect of the tones of the 
voice on the temper. A quarrel cannot be carried 
on in dulcet tone. 

(4) That the words of a man are the indices of 
his character. Having no other knowledge of a 
man, if all he had said and written could be made 
known to any intelligent being, that person could 
form a fair estimate of the man's character with- 
out any knowledge whatever of his acts. Men 
cannot see into each other's hearts and minds for 
evidence of character ; they have only what the in- 
ner man sends forth. In one sense our words always 
represent us fairly ; we are mistaken if we think 
they do not. ^'I did not mean that" may be said 
when one has misrepresented our words ; but in 
the case where the words are accurately reported 
as they were uttered, they either conveyed our 
meaning exactly or they correctly represent our 
inability at the moment to select the word befit- 
ting our thought. He who knows all that is in 
the mind of God and in the mind of men, uttered 
a profound and tremendous truth when He said, 



The Gospel of Common Sense, i6i 

By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy 
words thou shalt be condemned " (Matt. 12:37). 
It is worthy of note that He assigned this as 
the ground of His assertion, that every idle 
word that men speak, they shall give account 
thereof in the day of judgment." So, to make a 
full and perfect estimate of a man's character, 
there must not be omitted one single, solitary, 
slightest word that ever drops from his life or his 
pen. They must all be gathered by the great 
Estimator in making final judgment on the man's 
character. 

And we are never to forget that, whatever im- 
portance is to be attached to either words or 
deeds in this world, in that other state of exist- 
ence, upon which we are to enter at death, 
character is everything. As a man speaks so are 
his thoughts, and ''as he thinketh in his heart, so 
is he" (Prov. 13 : 7). 

A PERFECT MAN. 

In view of all these truths, how thoroughly is 
our author justified in taking the ground, that 
when a man shows perfect control over his 
tongue he has control over his head, and his 
heart, and his whole personality. 

This may seem to be a great thing to say to 
so small a member as the tongue. But the 
writer of this epistle sustains the position, not by 
any arguments drawn from metaphysics, but by 
illustrations appealing to our common sense. 



1 62 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



(1) From animate things he selects the horse. 
It is a powerful animal. A horse's bit is a 
small thing, and yet when put in the unruly- 
horse's mouth, we can control him better there- 
with than if he had much harness fastened to 
every limb, and worked by much machinery. So, 
he who controls his tongue controls his naturally 
unruly body. 

(2) From inanimate objects he selects the 
ships. A ship is vast ; not being unruly as the 
horse is, it is, however, driven by fierce winds. 
What a great power would be required to pull it 
against the face of the storm. In our day there 
is an immense steamship called the Great Eastern. 
A force applied from without to change its posi- 
tion, would be that of many thousands of horse- 
power ; and yet, when that huge mass of ma- 
terial and machinery is beaten upon by winds, 
travelling at the rate of many miles an hour, a lit- 
tle rudder changes its direction or holds it to its 
course. One single small man at the helm can 
so work the machinery that his rudder will in- 
stantly change the position of a vast hulk, which 
a thousand men could not budge. 

The tongue is like that horse and needs the 
^'bit," and like that ship and needs the rudder." 

It rears and charges like a proud horse," seems 
to be the meaning of James, when he says that 
it ''boasts greatly." And well it may. More 
than sceptres and swords, more than bayonets 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 163 



and cannon, more than steam and electricity, is 
one single human tongue. This day, while I write 
(29 March, 1889), there is one tongue in Europe, 
in a poor, sick mouth, whose sweet utterances are 
keeping Europe in Easter peace. A hundred 
words from that tongue would, in a hundred 
hours, change the values of all properties in 
Christendom, and in a hundred days array mil- 
lions of human beings in hostility, and change 
the face of affairs in all the continents and islands 
of the world. May not a member which can do 
such great things, boast itself of great things ? 
THE TONGUE AND THE PEN. 
We are never to forget the tongue " includes 
the ^^pen." No creature writes that does not 
think, and no creature thinks that cannot talk, if 
its organs be perfect. It is not the mere instru- 
mental tongue or instrumental pen. It is the 
word. Words are things, as much as bullets and 
daggers, and often are just as killing. Once, a 
New York paper gave an account of the terrible 
fall of a very beautiful woman. There was no 
reason of justice, or mercy, or public utility, or 
private help, to be had by publishing the facts, 
with the names, but they were startlingly sensa- 
tional. That woman's widowed mother, who, in 
a distant land, had reared a large family most re- 
spectably, whose other children are doing well, 
received a marked copy of the paper, detailing 
sickeningly the degradation of her child, and in a 



164 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

day that mother became a lunatic, and a whole 
circle were made to sufifer under the redoubled 
blows of the afifliction. The reporter who caught 
up that morsel of scandal, and the publisher of 
that paper who unnecessarily paraded it to the 
world, and the person who sent that marked 
copy to the poor mother, are guilty before God 
for that old lady's lunacy and the many heart- 
breaks that followed. 

It may be well to notice especially the case of the 
person sending the marked copy. There are people 
who are never heard to make vocal utterances that 
damage or even disparage others, who neverthe- 
less fancy it no harm to send anonymous notes 
injuring the reputation of others, provided they 
be persuaded that what they state is the fact, 
or to send a marked article in a paper which 
they know will give pain, supposing that the 
writer is responsible for the truth of the state- 
ment. It is proper that such persons should be 
taught the common-sense morality of Christianity. 

First of all, it must be borne in mind, that while 
it is always wrong to tell a lie for any purpose, it 
is not always right to utter a truth. Indeed, it is 
a question whether it is not always wrong to 
utter any truth without any purpose. We are 
always to speak the truth in love " (Eph. 4 : 15). 
Whatever we speak, or otherwise publish, must 
be truth. But, what we know as truth, is to 
be published or communicated to another only 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 165 

for-»reasons prompted by our love for God or for 
man. If my duty to any fellow-creature demand 
my utterance of anything that is true, I must 
utter it, although the wrong-doer suffer thereby. 
The same holds good when my sense of duty to 
the public is concerned. 

A publisher's responsibility. 

The publisher of a journal is bound to announce 
the wrong of any official, when it becomes cer- 
tified to him. This duty is created by his patriot- 
ism. But if he make the charge without knowing 
it to be true, he is a liar and a slanderer. He 
does not become less a liar and a slanderer, if it 
afterward turn out that the damaging allegation 
was true. He intended to publish it, true or false. 
True or false as the statement may be, he is as 
guilty as the author. He would have invented it 
if he could. He took up a reproach against his 
neighbor" (Ps. 15:3). Invention requires some 
genius ; any fool can convey a slander. 

But the statements of social conversation and 
of the press sometimes concern private indi- 
viduals. Then we have no right to publish the 
wrongs we know, unless compelled thereto by 
the law of justice or the law of benevolence. If 
I see that a man whom I know to be a seducer, 
is making advances to the daughter of another 
man, I am bound to go to the father and furnish 
him the facts in my possession. But I must not 



1 66 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

go to others and say Isn't it a pity that Mr. 
A. lets that Mr. B. wait on his daughter, when B. 
is such a licentious man ? " I have no right to 
slander Mr. A. by supposing that he knowingly 
exposes his daughter's morals to danger. I have 
no right to soil the good name of the innocent 
Miss A., who may thus always thereafter be in- 
jured by being known as *'that girl who had 
something to do with that dirty Mr. B.'' 

Little as against great ! A spark is so small 
beside a hundred acres of pine forest that no frac- 
tional expression can impart an idea of the com- 
parison. And yet, a spark dropped from a man's 
pipe has destroyed hundreds of thousands of 
valuable trees. And the tongue is a fire, and a 
word is a spark. Is the world vast ? The tongue 
of man is a world. It can say all that all the 
world can think. It can describe all that all the 
world has done or can do. It is the tongue that 
directs the world. It is what men say which 
governs what men do. There is so much evil in 
the organ of speech that it is well called **a 
world of iniquity." 

More evil has been done by the tongue than 
by all man's other organs and members. When 
the heart is not right, when it is like those mirrors 
which distort every object presented, then the 
tongue multiplies the copies of the deformed 
image, and society is filled with uglinesses. 



The Gospel of Coimnon Sense, 167 



SATAN'S TONGUE. 

Satan knows that if he could rule every tongue 
he would rule the world. He does his mischief 
by his tongue. No man probably ever sees or 
feels him with the hand. But he kills many a 
man. He has no dagger, no spear, no sword, no 
gun. But he has a tongue, and God declares that 
he is a murderer and a liar. And that he may 
make murderers and liars, he sets men's tongues 
on fire. He murders with his lying tongue, and 
men and women similarly commit murder. Yes, 

and women." Sometimes, words that blister, 
and bite, and kill, fall from beautiful lips, whose 
honey-sweetness conceals tongues ''full," as our 
author says, *'of death-bearing poison." And 
those words kill as surely as if spit from between 
the snaggled teeth of an obscene old witch. 

When inflamed, the wicked tongue does two 
things, (i) It hurts the evil speaker. It reacts 
upon him, increasing his envy, jealousy, hatred 
or whatever evil passion prompted the bad 
speech. No, sir, you are mistaken if you think 
to destroy your neighbor by your tongue and 
escape unharmed yourself. No, madam, you 
cannot deliberately smirch your sister's reputa- 
tion, however bad a woman she may be, with- 
out making yourself a worse woman. Perhaps 
those very facts in her history which you are 
using to her injury may not be so bad, nor in- 
spired by so vicious a spirit as that temper which 



1 68 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



prompts you to go about, scattering damaging 
reports concerning her. At any rate, every un- 
kind speech leaves the speaker worse. Not 
causelessly did the wise Solomon say, Suffer 
not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin (Eccles. 

5:6). 

(2) It hurts others. It arouses suspicions 
against them. It blocks up the way of their re- 
turn to virtue if they be bad. If they be inno- 
cent it tries and condemns them without a hear- 
ing. What is said against a man in his absence 
he cannot disprove. He knows nothing of it. 
He might be able to exculpate himself thoroughly 
if he heard the allegation. But he is cut off from 
that right. An evil report against a person may 
spread a long time without his knowledge. Peo- 
ple who look at him suspiciously, may innocently 
misinterpret the actions they see, and thus have 
their suspicions confirmed. It is well known that 
if the man with the healthiest mind among men 
should go to a small town in which all the in- 
habitants believed him insane, the simplest and 
most natural actions would seem to them con- 
firmations of the theory of his insanity. 

And, then, such things spread, like a fire which 
the Indians used to kindle on the prairies, when 
a spark from flint and steel would sweep through 
the dry grass so fiercely and so rapidly, that men 
and horses were compelled to flee for their lives 
over weary miles or fall and perish in the flames. 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 169 



THE ONE UNTAMABLE THING. 

How untamable is the tongue ! It began in 
Eden. It has been at its dreadful work of utter- 
ing filth, lies, and slanders ever since. Men have 
tamed lions, and tigers, and wolves, birds of prej^ 
and poisonous snakes, and even the fish of the 
sea — but the tongue of men hath no man sub- 
dued." Why can it not be done Because it is 
the ''tongue of men," the hmnan tongue; because 
it is not mere animal's. Human nature can sub- 
due animal nature, but who is to subdue the 
devilish nature, when it takes possession of human 
nature } The tongue can never be subdued ; to 
be useful, it must be made the organ of a re- 
newed, regenerated, transformed spirit. In itself 
it is an unrestrainable evil, full of death-bearing 
poison." 

RELIGIOUS USES OF THE TONGUE. 
And so James leads us to think of the religious 
use of the tongue, and the protest which religion 
makes against slander. The existence of the 
gift of speech, together with its restriction to man 
and its connection with the capability of reason- 
ing, is a very powerful theistic argument. For 
such a gift men should be naturally grateful. 
And there can be nothing found by which men 
can praise God for the gift of the tongue but the 
tongue itself. How great, therefore, is the sin, 
when the tongue is used to insult God. Nothing is 
so dear to God as man. There is no man on earth, 



170 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



however low, who is not dearer to God than any 
angel, for no angel is His child, and God, who has 
been found in fashion as a man," has never worn 
angelic nature. So, he who slanders or curses a 
man, insults God, as he who spits upon the statue 
of the Emperor, insults the majesty of the Empire. 

There is no necessity for those things. All 
nature is against them. From a fountain must 
issue fresh water or salt. Any saltness, how- 
ever little, spoils the freshness. Any bitterness 
of speech spoils the stream which proceeds out 
of the heart through the mouth. The drink is 
not wholesome, although there be but one drop 
of poison to a pint of the purest water that ever 
welled up from the clearest spring through bowl 
of granite rock. There is no double-dealing in 
nature. It would be idle to seek olives on a fig 
tree or figs on a grape-vine. We should not ex- 
pect to find a devil's fruit on a God's tree ! This 
thing would not be, if every man gave his life 
wholly to the service of God. The sweetened 
heart would make the language sweet, and every 
speech uttered regarding man would sound in 
echo like a shout to God. 

SOURCE OF THE EVIL. 

Having so forcibly pointed out the evils of an 
unruly tongue, James indicates the sources of 
that evil in the bad passions of the human heart 
which incite men to desire to be considered wiser 
than they are. This naturally leads to envy, and 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 171 

that to malice. Wisdom is to be desired, not the 
mere reputation of zvisdom. And there is a true 
wisdom and a false. And our author makes a 
contrast between them in their origin, their char- 
acteristics, and their effects. These are his 
words (chap. 3 : 13-18) : Who is wise and in- 
telligent among y oil ? Let him show out of a good 
life his works in meekness of wisdom. But if you 
have bitter zeal and party-spirit in your hearty do 
not boast y and do not be against the truth. This is 
not that wisdom coming down from above^ but is 
earthly y sensuous^ demoniacal. For where jealousy 
arid party- spirit y there anarchy and every foul 
deed. But the wisdom from above is first hallowed , 
then peaceable^ reasonable^ persuadable^ full of com- 
passion and good fruits^ not sectarian^ not hypo- 
critical. And the fruit of righteousness in peace 
is sown by them that make peace,'' 

In studying the epistle now before us, we are 
to bear in mind that it was addressed to Hebrew- 
Christians, to persons who had been Jews at a 
fanatical period of Jewish history, and who still 
must have retained much of the violent spirit of 
their old associations, and who had not yet been 
filled with the spirit of our Lord. This will ex- 
plain the tenor of the letter, and the form of its 
phraseology, and not deprive us of those les- 
sons in morality which we are seeking from its 
pregnant sentences and phrases. 



172 



Tlie Gospel of Coninion Sense, 



Our author's advice regarding the selection of 
public teachers is, that a man shall have wisdom, 
intelligence and usefulness. The absence of any 
one of these from his life should be considered 
fatal to his claims for so high, so responsible, so 
important an office as that of teacher. Has he 
gifts } Has he grace Has he fruit } These 
are the three questions. 

WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE." 

It must be observed that there is a difference 
between wisdom and knowledge. One is natural, 
the other acquired ; one comes from God, the 
other from man. A man who is not wise cannot 
acquire wisdom by his own exertions ; but any 
man can become learned, if he have industry and 
memory. A man may be wise and unlearned ; 
a man may be learned and be a fool. Wisdom 
is as superior to learning as the man who is both 
architect and builder is superior to the materials 
which he uses. But as those materials are neces- 
sary to the builder, so is learning to a wise man. 
Therefore, he who is truly wise will industriously 
seek to obtain all knowledge within his reach. 
No man to whom God has given wisdom despises 
learning. He can do little without it. It is that 
with which he is to make his life-work. The 
very first motion of wisdom in a man, is to **get 
understanding," to obtain a knowledge of things. 

From the very first these two were required in 
those who were to rule and lead in the Church of 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 173 

God. Moses called upon the Israelities to choose 
men who were (i) wise, (2) intelligent, and (3) 
known ; and such men he would appoint to be 
their rulers (Deut. i : 13). The basis of all is 
wisdom, the implement of wisdom is intelli- 
gence, and the result of the combination will 
produce that which makes a man known among 
his fellows. 

It is idle for a man to undertake to prove that 
he is wise. He may declaim and argue. But 
what has he done ? When the country needs a 
chief magistrate, a candidate being a great orator 
is almost no recommendation ! What has he 
done? is the natural question. What great 
measure of statesmanship has he originated, or 
conspicuously forwarded, or consummated } If 
none of these exist, no gift of speech, no mag- 
netism of manner, no shrewd political combina- 
tions will avail to advance his claim. And if 
there exist in his history those fruits which are 
the product of wisdom and intelligence, and of 
wisdom and intelligence only, they will be seen, 
and make him known. The more men talk 
against his good deeds the more conspicuous will 
those good deeds become. 

James, therefore, intimates that if a man is 
to be selected for wisdom, he cannot make mani- 
fest that wisdom by an argument to prove its 
existence, but all he has to do is to show from a 
good life, a life of truth, fidelity and beneficence, 



174 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

that he has so used what he has acquired as to 
adapt all objects in his control to their intended 
end. Not only by words but by works let the 
world see his wisdom, not only in one field but in 
all fields, not only on one side of his character, 
but on all sides let all who know anything of 
him know that it is good, and let him not parade 
this, let him show no exultation when it is dis- 
covered nor distressful disappointment when it is 
neglected, and by that very meekness men will 
be sure that he has wisdom. Meekness may not 
always be wise, but wisdom is always meek. So 
the really wise man who is meek impresses us as 
being more trustworthy than the violent, arro- 
gant, and dictatorial person, who is always striv- 
ing to secure the reputation of being wise. 

So we are turned in upon our hearts. If we 
have bitter zeal, such a partisan spirit as will 
allow no good on the other side, a spirit of con- 
tentious ambition, we need not attempt to se- 
cure our ends by boasting of our qualifications 
for the part of public teacher ; our very spirit 
would show how devoid we are of such qualifica- 
tions. A man lies against the truth when he 
seeks any station of responsible trust and influ- 
ence which he knows he would never obtain if 
everyone knew the whole truth as to his char- 
acter and history. 

TWO WISDOMS. 
Do you call that wisdom which is so fierce, so 
vindictive } It is such wisdom as man may ac- 



The Gospel of Coininon Sense, 175 



quire, but it is not real wisdom ; it has not come 
as God's gift, but as Satan's training in civil life. 
It makes a man smart, sharp, cunning ; in civil life 
it may make him a politician, but not a statesman ; 
it may make him an agitator in the Church, but 
not a leader and a helper. It is not from above. 
It is from beneath. It may win the admiration of 
slender wits and malicious spirits, but it will not 
secure the respect of the good and the intelli- 
gent. It is earthly, sensuous, demoniacal. It has 
no principle, no motive, no end, beyond this pres- 
ent world. It has its rise in the animal nature 
of man, by which he is akin to the snake and the 
tiger ; and finds its most desired result in the 
gratification of the lust of the eye, the lust of 
the flesh, and the pride of life. Its inspiration is 
that of all evil spirits, pride, which is the damna- 
tion of Satan (i Tim. 3 : 6), and which betrays the 
soul into maliciousness and makes it the accuser 
of the brethren. Let all censorious people re- 
member that the devil gets his name from being 
the accuser of the brethren (Rev. 12 : 10). Such 
a one is not the archangel Michael, who might 
have brought many a truthful accusation against 
the devil ; but even in contest with Diabolus, 
Michael would not say what might bring him on 
a level with the worst spirit in the universe, 
(Jude, 9). 

THE WISDOM FROM ABOVE. 
With this wisdom, which is only cunning, which 
is earthly, sensuous, infernal, which is anarchical 



176 The Gospel of Comfnon Sense, 



and destructive, James contrasts that other wis- 
dom, the real and worthy wisdom. 

Its origin is different. It is from above. It 
comes down from the Father of lights and of 
spirits (i : 17). The devil never inspires it ; he 
could not. It is not gained from man ; he has it 
not. It is God's direct gift. It must be sought 
from Him (i : 5). He gives it. It is such a gift 
as He bestows on archangels. Against the three 
lines describing devilish cunning, earthly^ SENSU- 
OUS, DEMONIAC, are set these seven colors of 
the light of wisdom, as they come out through 
the prism of the sanctified common-sense of the 
brother of Him in whom they blended, and shone, 
and glowed, until man saw the splendor of God 
in the beautiful life of the White Christ. 

ITS CHARACTERISTICS. 

(l) It is hallowed. On the spirit of man who 
has it there has fallen a sacred hush, as on a 
temple which a god inhabits. Its precincts are 
consecrated to worship. All desecrating prin- 
ciples, maxims, thoughts, purposes are excluded. 
It has no doubtful expedients and utters no 
words of double-meaning. It is clear, because it 
has been clarified. It is open to heaven and 
earth without concealments. It is chaste, seek- 
ing no unholy pleasures. 

We should lose much if we failed to notice that 
the first line in this spectrum has reference to 
the heart. Men so often begin their notions of 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 177 

religion as if it had something to do primarily 
with the head, making a system of orthodox 
theology stand for an experience of true religion; 
whereas, glorious as the true science of theology 
is, a man may be a very wise man and most pro- 
foundly religious before he has so much as heard 
that there is such a thing as a science called 
theology. The seat of true wisdom is in the 
heart. With the head (the intellect) man believes 
to science, that is, understanding ; but with the 
heart (the emotional part of his nature) man be- 
lieves to religion, that is, wisdom. Paul never 
uttered a profounder philosophical truth than 
when he said, ''With the heart man believeth 
unto righteousness" (Romans 10 : 10). The right 
heart is always working to make the right head ; 
but the contrary is not true, as many a man has 
become more wicked as he became more learned, 
while no man has grown more stupid as he grew 
purer in heart. 

One can easily perceive how the contentious 
Hebrew-Christians would take this phrase, ''first 
pure,*' and use it as an excuse for the indulgence 
of a fierce, fanatical, polemic spirit, claiming that 
the first duty of the Church was to exterminate 
heretics and so keep the doctrinal system pure. 
This were a mad perversion. There is probably 
nothing written on this passage more profitable 
to remember than the words of Albert Barnes, 
here transcribed : This passage should not be 



178 The Gospel of Common Sense, 

applied, as it often is, to the doctrines of religion, 
as if it were the first duty of a Church to keep it- 
self free from errors in doctrine, and that this 
ought to be sought even in preference to the 
maintenance of peace, as if it meant that in doc- 
trine a Church should be first pure then peace- 
able , but it should be applied to the individual 
consciences of meri as showing the effect of relig- 
ion on the heart and life. It is true that a Church 
should be pure in doctrinal belief, but that is not 
the truth taught here. It is not true that the 
Scripture teaches, here or elsewhere, that purity 
of doctrine is to be preferred to a peaceful spirit ; 
or that it always leads to a peaceful spirit ; or 
that it is proper for professed Christians and Chris- 
tian ministers to sacrifice, as is often done, a 
peaceful spirit in an attempt to preserve purity of 
doctrine. Most of the persecutions in the Church 
have grown out of this maxim. This led to the 
establishment of the Inquisition ; this kindled the 
fires of Smithfield ; this inspired Laud and his 
friends ; this has been the origin of no small part 
of the schisms in the Church. A pure spirit is 
the best promoter of peace, and will do more than 
anything else to secure the prevalence of truth.'* 
(2) The wisdom which comes from God is 
peaceable. It is peaceable because it is pure. 
Men that have no false and wicked purposes 
cannot break the peace. The peace of the world 
never has been broken by a pure man, a man 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 179 

who had no worldly, sensuous, or demoniac de- 
sires to gratify. There never was dissension be- 
tween two friends, never a rupture in any Church, 
never a rebellion in any State, never a war be- 
tween two countries, never a wicked controversy 
of any kind which did not have its origin in some 
impurity of soul. It is always foolish, as well as 
wicked, to break the peace. However in our 
wounded self-love, we may find excuses for our 
own participation in such transactions, it is cer- 
tain that in causing, or in aiding to continue, a 
violation of the peace we are not wise. 

Here again v/e have JAMES echoing the words 
of his adored brother Jesus: ''Blessed are the 
peace-makers, for they shall be called the children 
of God " (Matt. 5 : 9). There is no blessing for 
those who break the peace ; there is no blessing 
for the warriors who fight on the side which 
breaks the peace. Men may parade them in 
their short-lived histories, and erect statues to 
keep before men the efifigies of their personality, 
but they are the children of the devil. However 
they may fail in their earnest and honest efforts, 
the peace-makers are always regarded by the 
Lord of all life as His own children. 

And it may be worth noticing that the bene- 
diction which, in the Sermon on the Mount, 
Jesus pronounces on the peace-makers, follows 
immediately after that which is given to the pure 
in heart ; just as James says : " First pure, then 



i8o The Gospel of Common Sense. 

peaceable." Is this a mere coincidence, or has it 
some logical basis ? Can we live in peace with- 
out being pure? The pure in heart see God. 
God is the **Lord of peace*' (2 Thess. 3: 16), 
and gives peace to His children. All dissensions 
and wars come from the evil in men's hearts, 
and when that is banished there is no desire for 
conflict. 

(3) This wisdom is reasonable. It is not violent 
in its maintenance of its own convictions ; it is 
not stubborn, unwilling to hear what may be said 
*^on the other side." There are men who deem 
themselves wise, who storm out what they be- 
lieve to be the truth. Real wisdom does not so. 
Where there is a sober conviction of the right, 
and a firm faith in the final triumph of the right, 
all that a man has to do is to speak the truth in 
love. It is folly to hate the men who hold the 
other view. A wise man pities his opponent, but 
does not hate him. Hatred would imply some- 
thing personal. The truly wise man does not 
so much love himself as he loves the truth. If 
any man hold an error the wise man regards him 
as most unfortunate, and pities him, as a man in 
good health pities his neighbor whose eruptions 
show that he is diseased. 

Gentleness is not weak, and is not the product 
of weakness. It comes from being reasonable. 
None but the strong can be gentle ; others may 
be soft and apathetic, but gentleness as niuch re- 



The Gospel of Common Sense, i8i 

quires strength for its basis as the beautiful flowers 
and verdure require the strong ground of the geo- 
logical formations. A gentle man gains by giving. 
He is not punctilious of his rights. He will main- 
tain them, but always on grounds of reason, not 
of passion. He holds to his property not because 
it is his, but for the reason that he is responsible 
for it. Just so a man who has this wisdom from 
above, will not be violent in argument. He main- 
tains his opinions not because they are his opinions, 
but because he has formed them reasonably, and 
must maintain them reasonably and not passion- 
ately. So he will hear what others have to say. 
He may have had some flaw in his reasoning ; he 
desires above all things to be right. There may 
be something against his opinions which he has 
never thought of ; if there be he wishes to know 
it. He will listen patiently to an unlettered ser- 
vant, to a little child, to any one who can contrib- 
ute in the slightest to the enlargement of his 
understanding. A man may be weak and soft by 
nature, but not gentle ; that comes from wisdom, 
and wisdom comes from without, comes from 
above. James had already said, If any of you 
lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth (i : 
5). No man is born a gentle man. Such a char- 
acter is the product of wisdom, and wisdom is not 
natural, it is the gift of God. We must always 
keep that in mind. The schools may give cul- 
ture, learning and other human things, but not 



1 82 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



wisdom. That comes supernaturally. Solomon 
was no product of evolution, else some of his 
descendants would have equalled him, and others 
would have surpassed him. He asked of God " 
(i Kings 3). And God gave Solomon wisdom " 
(i Kings 4 : 29). '*And Solomon's wisdom ex- 
celled . . . all the wisdom of Egypt " (i Kings 4 : 
29). Of course it did, because the wisdom of 
Egypt was only the skill and cunning which hu- 
man nature can afford, while Solomon's was the 
true wisdom of celestial origin. [Notice the con- 
nection of statements in i Kings 5 : 12, " And the 
Lord gave Solomon wisdoin as He had promised 
Him ; and there was peace between Hiram and 
Solomon.''] 

(4) This wisdom is persuadable. Our author 
here uses a word which is not found elsewhere in 
the Holy Scripture, and which cannot be fully 
rendered, perhaps, by any single word in the 
English tongue. It certainly does not indicate 
any deficiency of character, and surely those who 
are easily influenced for others, whose nature is 
sometimes described as a nose of wax," have 
no right to this epithet. Easily persuaded?" 
Well, yes : if that mean that he stands open to 
conviction, willing to listen, free from stubborn- 
ness : but not if it mean that he is carried every- 
where and anywhere by all the winds that 
blow. As the word which we have translated 

reasonable" (in the Common Version gentle ") 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 183 



indicates the condition of the wise man's soul 
when he is striving to convince others, so this 

persuadable " seems to indicate the posture of 
his soul when others are striving to convince 
him. It means that if he has made an error he 
will not keep wandering on because he is un- 
willing to retrace his steps by the same path. It 
means that he will not waste energy in endeavor- 
ing to hold an untenable position under the control 
of intellectual pride. It means that he can be won 
over by fair means and sound argument. He 
yields to no force that is not reasonable, as he 
employs no agency that is not reasonable. 

There are persons, as we all know, who have no 
sign of this characteristic of wisdom, and ordinarily, 
when this is absent, so is this third characteristic, 

reasonableness." They are twin virtues. He 
who seeks to win over his opponent only by fair 
means, is very liable to be easily won by fair 
means. 

We are to remember that this epistle was 
addressed to those whose ruling fault was con- 
tentiousness. They were contending for that 
which was ready to perish. They were holding 
out for old rules against new principles. They 
were striving to put the new wine of Christianity 
into a ritual which was an old bottle James 
points out the unwisdom of this, that it was the 
folly of those who preferred the bottle to the 
wine. 



184 The Gospel of Common Sense, 

(5) The fifth trait of heavenly wisdom is com- 
passion^ which," Josephus says, of good passions 
was most of all lost among Jews/' Here, again, we 
have an echo of the teachings of James's brother, 
Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount : Blessed 
are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy" 
(Matt v). In a man of true celestial wisdom 
there is so much sympathy and compassion that 
it is perpetually bursting out into fruits of good- 
ness, which are so profitable that all men ac- 
knowledge them. You cannot know so well the 
condition of the tree, but fruits are visible and 
palpable. Men know the tree by the fruit, as 
God knows the fruit by the tree. 

(6) Sectarianism is the pride of the sectary, but 
the humiliation of all true religion. The wisdom 
from above does not lessen a man's love for his 
own denomination, but it enlarges his love for 
the good of all denominations. It avoids confin- 
ing all the good to one good thing. It does not 
abandon its own Church, but it belongs to all other 
Churches, and they all belong to it. 

The word here is not confined to religious cir- 
cles, but has the widest meaning. Wherever 
this heavenly wisdom goes, it avoids bringing 
upon itself the condemnation of being partial," 
and ''a judge of evil thoughts'* (2: 4). It is 
not partisan. It will not adhere to a party it 
loves, right or wrong." It will not condemn 
the other party, ''wrong or right.'' It will not 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 185 

oppress the poor when it happens to be rich, nor 
wrong the rich when it happens to be poor. Ap- 
peals on grounds of caste or, class, or previous 
condition will have no effect upon its judgment. 
It regards a man for what he is, not for what he 
has, or has been. 

The Jews, at the time of Christ, accounted 
themselves as the only people" ; all other na- 
tions being dogs " and so unclean that they were 
not to be admitted to social intercourse. This 
partiality was carried to such an extreme of sec- 
tarianism as even to override their greed for 
gain ; for it was regarded as disgraceful to trade 
with the Gentiles. This so impressed other na- 
tions, that Tacitus said of the Jews that *'they 
would be merciful to men of their own religion 
and country, but hated all mankind besides.'* 
Their bitter feeling to Samaritans is the key to 
the conversation which the woman of Samaria 
had with our Lord at Jacob's well (John 4), and 
to our Lord's parable of the Good Samaritan. 
(Luke 10). 

When some of them became Christians the old 
spirit broke forth in sectarianism. Some desired 
to keep the old Judaism ; others were for the 
fullest enjoyment of the liberty wherewith the 
Christ had made them free. Some were for war 
with Rome ; others were for peace. The latter 
were regarded by the former as no better than 
heathen. jAMES points out to his brethren, how 



1 86 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

utterly wanting in heavenly wisdom was all this 
fiery, fierce fanaticism. Well had it been for the 
Jews of his day if they had heeded his words of 
prudent and godly common-sense. Their secta- 
rianism produced the rebellions which precipi- 
tated their destruction. 

(7) The last characteristic of the heavenly wis- 
dom mentioned by our author, is the absence of 
all hypocrisy. Hypocrisy was a crying sin among 
the Jews. Against nothing did Jesus the Christ 
lift up His voice in more clear and terrible notes 
than against hypocrisy. In strain after strain of 
terrific invective He denounced it to scribe and 
pharisee and publican and sinner and disciple, 
with woe upon woe upon woe, as if He would re- 
duplicate and multiply its damnation. 

A CHEERING PROMISE. 

The whole passage closes with a most charm- 
ing and cheering promise. If the teachers and 
professors of the faith of the Lord Jesus will 
cultivate peace— not simply do occasional acts — 
they will be as men who sow good seed, which 
shall bring them a plentiful harvest. It will be a 
harvest after the kind of the seed sown. It will 
be peace in righteousness.'' It will not be that 
poor peace which a man temporarily enjoys in re- 
turn for the sacrifice of some principle, and 
which is always followed by unrest. It will be 

peace in righteousness.'* Whatever others may 
do to themi, whatever calumnies and slanders 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 187 



may be uttered against them, they that have not 
spoken bitter and slanderous words will know 
peace. And that peace will be permanent. The 
gains of strife are bitter fruits, as well to him who 
gains as to him that loses thereby. But the fruits 
of ''peace in righteousness shall be eternal. 

It is delightful to trace the echoes of the words 
of Jesus in the words of James. ''Blessed are 
the peace-makers, for they shall be called the chil- 
dren of God," said the one (Matt, 5 : 9), and " the 
fruit of peace in righteousness," says the other, 
"is sown by them that make peace." And of 
old time, the Psalmist said (Ps. 97: ii), " Light 
is sown for the righteous," and the prophet (Isa. 
32 : 17), declared that " the work of righteousness 
is> peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness 
and assurance forever.'* 



VIII. 

Demoniacal Wisdom. 



CHAPTER IV., 1-3. 
FRUITS OF DEMONIAC WISDOM. 

IN the Opening of the fourth chapter, jAMES 
points his readers to the terrible fruits of that 
wisdom which is not from above, but is 
earthly, sensuous, and demoniacal. 

Whence wars and whence fightings a^nong you ? 
Are they not hence ^ even from your pleasures exert- 
ing their force in your members ? You strongly 
desire and have not ; you slay and are zealous^ and 
you are not able to obtain. You fight and war, 
and have not, because you pray not. You ask and 
do not receive, because you pray wickedly, that you 
may spend it on your pleasures T 

Those Jews who had become Christians, were 
in a large measure moved by that unrest which 
agitated those who still remained under the old 
ritual of religion. Among the former it was the 
tares sown among the wheat. Among the latter 
it was as a field all overgrown with tares. Readers 
of the New Testament will recollect allusions to 
this state of affairs in the Gospels and in the Acts 
of the Apostles. The Jewish people were looking 
for the Messiah, not because He stood for the 



Tlie Gospel of Common Sense, 189 



salvation of their souls, and the elevation of the 
moral tone of the people, but as for One who 
should lead them against the Roman force, and 
with superhuman power break the Roman yoke. 
Questions connected with the main issue, or 
arising therefrom, divided households and inflamed 
neighborhoods. The coming of Jesus, and the 
hopes which were at first begotten by His advent, 
and then disappointed by the pacific turn of His 
ministry, increased the popular inflammation. 
Pretenders and seditious scoundrels, and perhaps 
sincere fanatics were taking advantage of this 
heated expectation, to add fuel to the flame. In 
the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew Jesus warns 
His disciples against those w^ho should claim to be 
the political Christ. If they were .solicited to 
follow some leader to the desert, or join some 
secret cabal in the city (v. 26) they were not to 
be drawn into peril by listening to such calls, for 
the reason that the coming of the true Messiah 
would be with as unmistakable a sign as the flash 
of the lightning. The Jewish people were them- 
selves in parties on this question, some carrying 
their spirit of resistance to Rome into violent 
procedure, in which they were opposed by those 
who hated Rome no less, but counselled moderation 
as more prudent. Then, when some of them became 
Christians, those who remained Jews fought them. 
Then those Christians were divided among them- 
selves, some leaning to the old ritual, some 



igo The Gospel of Common Sense, 

insisting violently on the old ritual, some oppos- 
ing all re-Judaizing tendencies, and zealously, and 
sometimes violently, fighting for the freedom of the 
Gospel, some for the spiritual freedom of the new- 
form of faith, and some for what was so great a 
perversion of Christian freedom that it was little 
less than licentiousness. 

FALSE CHRISTS. 

Three years before the beginning of the Chris- 
tian era, there had arisen a false Messiah, named 
Theudas, and, subsequently, *Mn the days of the 
taxing," had arisen one Judas of Galilee, who led 
forth a band of four hundred men, all of whom 
the Romans had destroyed (Acts 5). And yet, 
so great was the hatred of Rome, and so fixed 
were the Jews in the opinion that the Messiah 
was to be a temporal prince, who should deliver 
them from the Roman yoke, that down to the 
writing of this epistle, broils, tumults, and sedi- 
tions, all unsuccessful, marked the history of the 
Jewish people, in every city, as Josephus says, 
not only in Judea, but in Alexandria, Syria, and 
many others places. 

It is quite easy to conceive that the excellent 
writer of this epistle had in his mind the intent 
to reach the Jews who were outside the circle of 
Hebrew-Christians by this letter, which was 
primarily addressed to those brethren and cir- 
culating among them, and thus contribute what 
he could to postpone, if he could not avert, the 



The Gospel of Common Sense, igi 



destruction of his people by the superior power 
of the Romans. 

EVILS OF WAR. 
What a tremendous and a terrific thing is war ! 
How it makes one shudder to read the blood-red 
pages of the history of humanity from the begin- 
ning. Some sketch of the havoc of war is found in 
the following statement by Burton : The siege 
of Troy lasted ten years, eight months. It is said 
there died 870,000 Grecians, 670,000 Trojans ; at 
the taking of the city were slain 276,000 men, 
women, and children of all sorts. Caesar killed a 
million, Mohammed the second Turk, 30,000 ; 
Curius Dentatus fought in a hundred battles ; 
eight times in single combat he overcame, had 
forty wounds, was rewarded with one hundred 
and forty crowns, triumphed nine times for his 
various services. M. Sergius had thirty-two 
wounds ; Scaeva the Centurion, I know not how 
many ; every nation hath their Hectors, Caesars, 
and Alexanders. Our [English] Edward the 
Fourth was in twenty-six battles afoot ; and as 
they do all, he glories in it ; this is related to his 
honor. At the siege of Jerusalem, 1,100,000 died 
with sword and famine. At the battle of Can- 
nae, 70,000 men were slain, as Polybius records, 
and as many at the Battle Abbey with us [in 
England] ; and it is no news to fight from sun to 
sun, as they did, as Constantine, Licinius, etc. 
At the siege of Ostend, a poor town in respect, a 



192 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

small fort, but a great grave, 120,000 men lost 
their lives, besides whole towns ruined, and hos- 
pitals full of maimed soldiers. There were en- 
gines, fireworks, and whatsoever the devil could 
invent to do mischief, with 2,500,000 iron bullets, 
and shot of forty pounds weight, three or four 
millions of gold consumed/* 

The following figures are taken from the statis- 
tics of the Franco-German war, published by the 
Prussian War Office. In August, 1870, 780,728 
German soldiers crossed the French frontier, fol- 
lowed, during the war, by 222,762 others. The 
soldiers remaining in Germany were 400,000. 
At the close of the armistice the German army 
counted 936,618 men. The army besieging Paris 
numbered 180,000, while the Paris garrison num- 
bered 230,000 men. The number of combats 
in which at least one company, one squadron, or 
a battery was engaged was 766. 333,341 French 
prisoners were sent into Germany. The French 
lost 107 flags, 7,441 cannon, and 855,000 fire- 
arms. The loss of the German army was 129,000 
men, of whom 40,862 were killed, and 88,838 
wounded ; 17,572 were killed on the field, and 
10,710 died in consequence of their wounds. The 
battle of Gravelotte cost 20,159 men; Mars-la- 
Tour, 15,790; Woerth, 10,642; Sedan, 9,924; 
the siege of Paris, 12,509 ; and Metz, 5,571. The 
number of shots from field guns was 362,662. The 
soldiers used 30,000,000 cartridges, the most being 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 193 



by the Third Corps at Mars-la-Tour, where 720,000 
rifle shots were fired, and the batteries fired 10,- 
000 grenades. 

The loss of life would be appalling, if that were 
all that war entailed. But it is not. Among 
those who die in battle are many who are a good 
riddance to the world. The place of the better 
portion is soon taken by the successive genera- 
tions of men. The killing is not all. The bitter- 
ness infused into society by the intrigues and 
plottings that precede wars, the heart-burnings of 
the authors of wars, the desolation of homes, the 
long-drawn agonies of fathers and mothers and 
wives and daughters and friends of the men who 
are called to the field, the great army of widows 
and orphans they leave, the vast destruction of 
property, which can be replaced only by years 
of great toil, and the legacies of troubles, taxes, 
debts, and political bitterness, bequeathed to 
survivors, are added elements of distress. 

When all this is surveyed, a thoughtful mind 
naturally wonders how human nature can so 
much as allow war, not to say glory in war. 
And yet there is the fact, that even at the close 
of the nineteenth century after all the forms of 
religion, true and false, have been seen in the 
world from the beginning ; after Christianity, the 
religion of the strongest and greatest personality 
that ever appeared amongst men, a Man who died 
rather than fight or even lend Himself to a war- 



194 



The Gospel of Coimnon Sense, 



like party or purpose, a religion which has stimu- 
lated and aided the intellectual advancement of 
the race and produced all its civilization that is 
worth anything, after all its centuries of influ- 
ence — there remains the fact, that, at this day, 
millions of men are drawn from the profitable 
labors of peace to the devastating employments 
of war, or are standing in idle array awaiting the 
onset of battle, while their clothes, their arms, 
their defences, their support, must be wrung 
from the other millions who are allowed to stay 
at home, only because the army must be sup- 
ported. 

Surely, in our age, we may heed the sharp cry 
of James, Whence came wars and fightings 
among you?" We do well to bow to the in- 
struction of this wise teacher, who turns us in 
upon our hearts for an answer, ^'Are they not 
hence, even from your pleasures exerting their 
force in your members?" 

The rhetorical movement of speaking to his 
brethren, and through them to others, as if they 
were present gives great vivacity to the style of 
our author. Those whom he addressed, were per- 
fectly well aware of the warlike spirit of the peo- 
ple, which was productive of fightings among'* 
individuals. He does not say one word as 
against war, as that was not needed. '*Wars 
and fightings " always mean wickedness and 
wretchedness. It is not a question whether war 



The Gospel of Co^nmon Sense. 195 



be bad or not. None but a diabolical intellect 
would undertake to frame an argument in defence 
of war in the abstract. It is an admitted dire 
evil. Whence comes it ? There is no other 
spring of such a baleful stream than that which 
is found in the human heart. 

WHENCE COME WARS. 
" Whence wars and whence fightings among 
you ? Are they not hence, even from your 
pleasures, which war in your members ? " The 
word here translated pleasures is used to ex- 
press the pleasure of the senses, and hence some- 
times signifies strong desire for such gratification. 
In this picturesque sentence, these are represented 
as warriors spreading themselves through the 
members/' seizing the body as the instrument for 
the accomplishing of their designs and the gaining 
of their ends. It is the desire for greater territories, 
larger incomes, more splendor, wider indulgence in 
physical pleasures, greater gratification of their 
pride and ambition, which lead kings to wan 
Every war has begun in sin. 

It is so in religious circles. The pride of opinion, 
the love of rule, the enjoyment of more renown 
for numbers and wealth and influence, have led 
sects and Churches into all the persecution and so- 
called religious wars which have disgraced the 
cause of truth, and discouraged the aspirations of 
the good, and increased the infidelity of the world. 

Appealing to the Jews James calls their atten- 
tion vividly to their moral and spiritual condition, 



196 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



" You strongly desire and have not/' [Here the 
word translated lust " is not of the same root as 
the word so translated in the preceding verse]. 
Whitby points out that the lusting of the Jews of 
that day was after two things: (i) Liberty — 
freedom from that tribute which was the token of 
their subjection. Josephus says that they were con- 
tinually clamoring for this, to have the tributes 
taken away" ; and that the Zealots, " the band of 
thieves and their magicians were still pressing the 
people to fight for their liberty from the Roman 
yoke." (2) They lusted not only for freedom, but 
for domination over other peoples. The desire for 
independence had its basis in good, although it 
led them to do wicked things to secure it. They 
desired to bring other people into the galling 
relation to themselves which they were suffering 
in their relation to the Romans. And what was 
true politically was true ecclesiastically. They 
desired to rule others, the unchristianized Jews 
striving to dominate the Hebrew-Christians, and 
they striving in return against the Jews, while the 
latter were looking for a Messiah who should en- 
able them to tyrannize the heathen. 

THE FRUITLESSNESS OF SIN. 
How fruitless all this wicked exertion ! *^ What 
you desire you have not," says James. *'You 
slay and are enemies ; yet, even in such extreme 
measures, you have not the power to obtain what 
you want. You have slain John the Baptist. 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 197 



You have slain the Lord of life and glory. You 
have slain that good man Stephen. You have 
slain James Zebedee. You have endeavored to 
slay Paul ! What an indictment ! And how- 
short a time after it was uttered was it before 
they slew the author of this epistle himself. 

And yet had they gained anything ? A few 
proselytes were made from one sect to another : 
that was all. What a poor purchase at what a 
prodigious price ! And why had they failed } Be- 
cause they had not sought ends pleasing to God in 
the attempt to obtain that upon which they could 
not ask God's blessing. This teaches us a most im- 
portant lesson, in morals as well as religion. If 
any question of right arise one has only to ask, 
Does God wish me to do this ^ 

There need scarcely ever be difficulty in fina- 
ing a correct answer to that question. The ex- 
plicit commands of the Holy Scriptures solve a 
very large proportion of all ethical questions 
which arise, and the principles laid down in Holy 
Scripture enable any man of ordinary good sense 
to frame rules for all recurring emergencies. 
A superstitious religion is always desiring to 
have God on its side ; but an ethical religion is 
always studying to be on God's side. 

PRAYER. 

James is writing very vividly, as though he 
were face to face with those whom he was re- 
proving. When he intimates that they had 



198 The Gospel of Common Sense, 

sought to obtain by violence what should have 
been sought in prayer, he seems to hear them 
exclaim, Pray ! Pray ! Why, do we not pray 
ten times in the day ? we are not the men to 
summon to prayer. Call on the heathen." Nay, 
James would say. You ask ; you do not pray. 
Your petitions are conceived in sinfulness, and 
uttered in wickedness. All true prayers made 
to God, are for something which will enable the 
supplicant to please and serve God. It is an un- 
hallowed petition which asks for something which 
I intend to spend on the gratification of my own 
selfish, sensual, wicked and destroying lusts. It 
was not for the greater glory of God, and the ex- 
tension of His kingdom, that the Jews longed for 
independence and dominion ; it was that they 
might gratify the wicked thirsts of their own cor- 
rupt hearts. 

Let us be careful of our prayers. They show 
our hearts to God, and ought to reveal them to 
ourselves. 



IX. 

Worldly-mindedness. 

CHAPTER IV., 4-17. 
REPROACHES. 

LOOKING upon the distracted state of Juda- 
ism, and seeming to see the ancient peo- 
ple faUing away from God, JAMES breaks 
into strong reproaches. 

In the verses 4-6 he thus addresses them : Ye 
adulterers and adulteresses, do ye not know that 
the friendship of the world is hatred of God? 
Whosoever, therefore, chooses to be a friend of the 
world maketh himself an ene^ny of God. Or, do ye 
think that the Scripture speaketh emptily? Does 
the spirit which He has made to dwell in us incline 
to envy ? On the contrary, He giveth a greater 
grace ; for He saith * God resist eth the proud, but to 
the humble He giveth grace! " 

THE RELIGIOUS COVENANT A MARRIAGE. 
The spirit of the old prophets seems to have 
come upon James. The strain in this passage 
reminds us of the tones in Isaiah and Ezekiel. 
It is interesting and instructive to observe in the 
Sacred Scriptures, both of the Old and the New 
Testament, how the idea of religion is set forth 
in marriage. 

In the New Testament the Apostle represents 



200 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



marriage as setting forth that mystical union 
which is between Christ and His Church. And 
this thought came to him, undoubtedly, from his 
knowledge of the fact, that the old covenant was 
regarded as a marriage between Jehovah and His 
people. Perhaps in this very early and long- 
cherished connection of thoughts, we may see how 
adultery has been considered one of the chief 
crimes ; and with that thought, what an appeal it 
is to any people to be faithful to their religious 
covenant, by reminding them that the infidelity 
in this department is as gross and debasing a sin, 
as infidelity to the marriage relation. It would 
profit the reader to examine the following passages 
from the Old Testament Scripture ; Ps. 73 ; Isa. 
57; Ez. 23; Hos. 3. 

These show us how sacred in the eyes of the 
Hebrew seers was the bond of union between 
God and His Church, and how foul they regarded 
the stain brought upon any soul by any course of 
thought, or feeling, or conduct, which separated it 
from its God. That separation was always traced 
to another love, a love which was illegitimate. 
We know that the Jews, in the days of JAMES, 
were greatly given to carnal excesses, and it is 
possible that in selecting this particular word to 
indicate spiritual apostasy, he may have also ad- 
ministered a side rebuke to all the carnal modes 
of life. And the idea is carried forward in what 
he next says. 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 20 1 



He intimates to them that nothing ought to be 
better known to them than the fact that God has 
taught that friendship of the world is hatred of 
God. It was their worldly-mindedness, it was 
their desire to enjoy this present world, which 
had led them to envy, to hatred, to wars, to fight- 
ings ; and so he goes back to the very source 
of the terrible state of affairs amongst them, and 
rebukes them, because they were living in viola- 
tion of their marriage vows to God. He solemnly 
reminds them that the bride of God could not be 
the world's bride. 

In this passage the world " is to be understood 
to be the personification and representation of 
that which is opposed to God. We must not 
take morbid views of this subject. So sensible a 
writer as James could not have meant that those 
who serve God could not be touched with the 
beauty of this visible world with its carpeted sur- 
face, its brave overhanging sky, its beautiful and 
constantly varying phenomena, and the great 
educating power there is in studying the laws of 
these phenomena. He is not inveighing against 
aesthetics and science. On the contrary he well 
knew, as we well know, that love regards with 
interest the very garments worn by the beloved, 
and the most devout soul might kiss the visible 
material as one that loved him might kiss the 
hem of the garment of a king. 



^02 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

THE LOVE OF GOD AND WORLDLY-MINDEDNESS. 

We know, also, for the Scripture teaches us, 
that they who love God take pleasure in studying 
His works. Everything of which knowledge can 
be got by the senses becomes more precious to 
them, because it is regarded as the work of their 
adored Lord. But he does point to the fact, that 
it is possible to become so engaged by the beau- 
tiful things of the world, by pomp and display, 
by gay dress and courtly address, by many things 
in society that charm the eye, as to have the soul 
wholly drawn off from God. It is possible, also, 
so to study, so to become engaged with, the 
phenomena of the universe and the laws which 
govern those phenomena, as actually to feel that 
there is nothing beyond the things which can be 
reached by the senses, and to worship law as if it 
were the personal law-giver, and so be lost to God. 
All such love becomes hatred to God, and as we 
see throughout human society, the wordly-mind- 
ed people and materialistic scientists become idol- 
aters, and thus violate the marriage covenant of 
their souls with God. 

It is to be noticed, that the Apostle speaks of 
this state of mind as being the result of choice. 

Whosoever, therefore, chooses to be the friend of 
the world,'* that is, either allows himself on account 
of his ungodly inclinations to drift into world- 
liness, or deliberately makes up his mind for any 
reason to make the friendship of the world at all 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 203 

costs, does thereby become an enemy of God. 
He is willing to neglect the indication of God's 
will ; he is wiUing to violate God's commandment ; 
he is willing to give up all thought of pleasing 
God, if he can please the world around him. 

With all an Israelite's hatred of the heathen, 
with all a Christian's professions of renunciation, 
it is possible for one, or the other, or both, to 
make this dreadful choice. 

James's question must have thrilled his brethren 
when they first read it, and it may well thrill us and 
set us to the close examination of our own hearts. 
Christian people in this day, are surrounded by 
those who do not fear God and keep His com- 
mandments, who are not hving **as seeing Him 
that is invisible," who have no treasures laid up 
in heaven, who have no plans or purposes which 
shall extend into an existence beyond the grave. 
That world is a vain world, that is to say, it is 
empty of God, empty of faith, empty of hope, and 
empty of all spiritual life. At best, it has cliques, 
it has coteries, and it has friendships ; it has its 
fashions, its pleasures and its amusements ; but 
how empty they all are ! 

WHO IS A LOVER OF THE WORLD".!* 

Let us ask ourselves a few questions. Is not 
he a lover of the world, who makes his choice of 
friends from worldly men and women, because 
they are worldly people } Is not he a lover of 
the world, who is found oftener in places of 



204 * The Gospel of Common Sense. 

doubtful or sinful or merely worldly amusement 
than in the assembly of the saints, in the con- 
gregation of the worshippers, in the meeting for 
prayer ? Is not he a lover of the world, who 
spends more of his income annually in promoting 
those things which exist simply for society and 
for this passing world, than he does to promote 
the spread of the kingdom of God in his own 
family and among the children of men ? 

It is not necessary to go into details. Every in- 
telligent person knows the difference between the 
Church and the world, and every one can settle for 
himself whether the larger part of his influence 
goes to the one or to the other. He knows which 
subordinates the other in his affections. He knows 
whether in seeking his home, whether in fixing 
the place of his residence, or in choosing the very 
church in which he is to worship, he is governed 
more by the thought of that which will promote 
the popularity of himself and his family with the 
people of the world, and give him greater access 
to all their pleasures and amusements, than by 
the thought of the spiritual advancement of him- 
self and his children. It is to be remembered, 
that each one of us belongs either to the friends 
of the world or to the friends of God. 
HOLY SCRIPTURE AGAINST WORLDLY-MINDED- 

NESS. 

Against this worldly-mindedness, which is the 
father of envy and the grandfather of wars and 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 205 



fightings, James brings the authority of the Holy- 
Scriptures. He appeals to those who had always 
professed to have reverence for the word of God. 
He employs a word which was always used to 
denote the Old Testament — a word occurring 
more than fifty times in the New Testament, and 
always applied, and applied only, to those books 
which the Jews regarded as inspired. 

**Can you think lightly of the tenor of the 
teaching of the Holy Scripture ? " is his question. 
He does not quote any passage from those sacred 
writings ; but he appeals to their reverence for 
them, and uses the general trend of their teach- 
ing to enforce his exhortation to turn from that 
worldliness which produces envy and all the ter- 
rible evils which follow in its train. He might 
have had in his mind such passages as these : 
(Job 5:12), Wrath killeth and envy slayeth the 
silly one or these words of Solomon (Eccl. 4 : 
4), "I considered all travail and every right work, 
that for this a man is envied of his neighbor ; " 
(Prov. 14: 30), *'Envy is the rottenness of the 
bones ; " (Prov. 27 : 4), Who is able to stand 
before envy } " 

He may have also had in his mind the cases 
that had occurred, that were recorded in Sacred 
Scripture, showing the truth of these sayings. 
Such is that passage in Isaac's life (Gen. 26) 
when the envy of the herdmen of Gerar led to a 
conflict in regard to the well, which thence took 



2o6 The Gospel of Common Sense, 

the dreadful name Esek, eontention ; or the ac- 
count (Gen. 30) of RacheFs envy of her sister, 
which led to such sin and sorrow in the house- 
hold of'Jacob ; or the story (Gen. 37) of the envy 
which the brethren of Joseph had toward him, 
which brought exile and captivity upon the 
young brother, years of keenest distress to the 
old father, and a series of perplexities and mis- 
haps to the family in all its branches. Perhaps the 
familiar Psalm 106 may have brought the thought 
of that sin in the camp in the wilderness, when the 
forefathers envied Moses, and Aaron the saint of 
the Lord ; when the earth opened and swallowed 
up Dathan and covered the company of Abi- 
ram ; when fire was kindled in their company 
and the flame burned up the wicked." The 
readers of James might be expected to call to 
mind the solemn Psalm of Asaph (Ps. 73) in 
which the devout singer related the painful ex- 
perience which he had endured, when his ^'feet 
were almost gone and his steps had well-nigh 
slipped, because he was envious of the foolish, 
when he saw the prosperity of the wicked." He 
did not need to quote any particular passage 
from a book which was full of the records of the 
wickedness of the human heart, and of the 
direful consequences of that wickedness. Out of 
the Old Testament take all that refers to this 
subject and you leave it a blank, almost an 
empty*' book. But if the subject recurred in 



The Gospel of Conimm Sense. 207 



the Scriptures only a one-hundredth of the times 
it does, it ought to be impressive to the heart of 
a man who bad been educated an Israelite. 

We may' pause to remind ourselves that JAMES 
appealed to the highest authority in morals exist- 
ing in his day, namely, the Old Testament Scrip- 
ture. In our day, Hebrew-Christians and Chris- 
tian-Hebrews accept the New Testament as of 
equal authority, while the principle remains that 
the final appeal amongst men, on any question of 
morals, must be to the word of the Most High 
God. What that teaches us to do, it is right to 
do. What that forbids us to do, it is wrong to 
do. All other things are indifferent. In ques- 
tions of ethics, we can do nothing with a man 
who denies this authority ; we can hold no argu- 
ment with him ; we can say nothing to produce 
conviction, unless our own lives be such as to 
make the man feel that any teaching which pro- 
duces such a life must have in it the most power- 
ful ethical energy. We can do nothing with the 
man who denies the authority of the Holy Scrip- 
ture, as the word of God, because we have no 
common standard to which to appeal. It was 
doubtless the intention of our author to put his 
assertion in its most effective form by stating it 
in the shape of a question. If worldliness, en- 
viousness and contentions are not bitter things, 
the Bible is not worth mentioning ; but if the 
Holy Scripture be the word of God, the most 



208 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 



tremendous denunciation from the Supreme 
Power of the universe is launched against those 
dreadful sins. 

THE HOLY SPIRIT AGAINST WORLDLY-MINDED- 

NESS. 

James brings another argument to bear on this 
subject. It is founded on the Holy Spirit, which 
all Christians were supposed to have dwell in 
them. Was ever envy, with all its dire train of 
evils, a product of the Holy Spirit ? Does ever 
the Holy Ghost which is in us, secretly and 
spiritually incline us to worldliness and envy, any 
more than the same Holy Ghost does in the 
Bible ? Is not the fruit of the Spirit love, joy, 
peace, long-sufifering, kindness, goodness, meek- 
ness, temperance " ? Are we not inclined to all 
these things by the Holy Spirit constantly? And 
can these things co exist with worldly-minded- 
ness, envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitable- 
ness ? 

The Holy Spirit, instead of producing these 
hateful things, so unfavorable to spiritual growth, 
grants unto us a grace which adorns and enriches 
our lives, so that it is greater than all the things 
we can gain by envy and strife ; and that we may 
know that He does give that grace, the Holy 
Spirit hath said (Prov. 3 : 34) Surely He scorn- 
eth the scorners, but He giveth grace unto the 
lowly." James was familiar with the Septuagint 
version of the Old Testament Scriptures, and from 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 209 



it makes this quotation exactly, except that that 
version has Lord " instead of God.'' But the 
thought is the same, God resisteth the proud, 
but giveth grace to the humble.'* 

GOD IS AGAINST PRIDE. 

There is something striking in the prepositions 
of the Greek version. God puts Himself against 
those who lift themselves up. The proud lift 
themselves up above their own deserts, above 
their own fellow-men, above their God. On this 
challenge God puts Himself in battle-array against 
the proud. We know what will come then, for 
who can resist God, when once He places His 
wisdom. His power. His providence against a 
man ? It were well if all the proud would turn 
themselves to this thought, that pride is a per- 
petual fight against God, and God is perpetually 
fighting the proud ; that there is nothing in the 
processes of nature, nothing in the word of God, 
nothing in the way He has devised for men's 
salvation which can in the least degree be used to 
nourish pride ; but there is everything to slap 
pride in the face and spit upon its gewgaws. 
There is everything in nature, in the word of God, 
in His providences, in His way of saving men 
through Jesus Christ, to exalt the humble. 

It is impossible for a man to be saved who does 
not come for salvation with a clear discernment 
of his real guiltiness and absolute helplessness. 
But when a man has cast away all pride, and is 



2IO The Gospel of Common Sense, 

thoroughly humbled, then God loves to show him 
favors. There is no peace for the heart, there is 
no progress for the intellect, there is no salvation 
of the spirit without humiHty. The choice given 
to us all, is between humility and humiliation. It 
is so in society, and in civil and religious life. 
Pride comes before destruction in the pursuit of 
scientific attainments, in acquiring influence over 
our fellow-men, and in striving to administer 
ecclesiastical affairs. 

He who would learn the secrets of nature, must 
bow his ear most humbly to her mouth, and 
never venture proudly to apply his mouth to her 
ear. No man has added to the real assets of 
science, who has not studied nature in this spirit. 
No man has ever largely influenced and led his 
fellow-men, until they have seen in him a real 
disposition to be most truly and thoroughly 
serviceable unto them. The law of the Master is 
the law of love. He that will be chief among 
you, must be servant of all. 

TRUE CONVERSION — ITS CHARACTERISTICS. 

Trusting that his words had made an impres- 
sion upon his brethren, James proceeds to instruct 
them in the characteristics of true conversion. 

Be subject^ therefore^ unto God. Resist the devil, 
and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, 
and He will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, 
ye sinners ; and purify your hearts, ye double- 
souled. Be greatly afllicted and mourn and wish 



The Gospel of Cojmnon Sense, 211 

to weep : let your laughter be turned into mourning 
and your joy into sadness. Humble yourselves in 
the presence of the Lord^ and He will lift you upT 
SUBMISSION TO GOD. 

The first thing necessary for a thorough, hearty 
change in the whole moral life of a man, is to 
submit himself to God. There are no sanctions of 
morahty to an atheist. He that does not believe 
in a personal God cannot be a moral man. It is 
not said that he will not do many things which are 
right, many things which the moral men around 
him do ; it is not said that he may not even find 
what he calls data of ethics," and formulate 
some sort of system, either from utilitarianism, 
which finds that right to do which it is profitable 
to do, or from hedonism, which finds that to be 
right which administers to the personal pleasure, 
NO MORALITY POSSIBLE TO ATHEISM. 

But on whatever ground he may put his 
intellectual system, there is nothing to bind him. 
Supposing a man had precisely the data of ethics 
known to the mind of God, and had formulated 
precisely the system which stands in the mind of 
God, and suppose he even endeavored to conform 
his life steadily to this system, he might still be 
an immoral man. He would be if he had no 
sanction to his system. The data and the system 
are inoperative without a sanction, and there 
seems to be no conceivable sanction of morality, 
which does not have reference to a person of para- 



212 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

mount moral authority ; and a person of para- 
mount moral authority is a synonyme for God. 

One easily perceives that, supposing it were 
known what course of conduct would bring the 
greatest good to the greatest number, the ques- 
tion still remains unanswered, why is any man 
bound to bring the greatest good to the greatest 
number ? What obligation is he under to the 
greatest number? What has the greatest num- 
ber ever done for him ? How does a favor create 
an obligation ? Why is it not better to do that 
which is more profitable to a man's self than that 
which is more profitable to all mankind, suppos- 
ing that there could be two entirely diverse 
courses thus described ? 

Again, why should a man pursue that course 
of conduct which brings the greatest pleasure to 
himself ? What binds him to such a course if he 
choose to take another which brings less pleas- 
ure to himself? Whatever puts on the semblance 
of an ethical idea, which does not have in itself 
a clear conception of a paramount personality 
who must be obeyed, is no ethical idea at all. 
The essence of the ethical idea is obedience to 
another, to One who is superior to all and has 
authority over all. 

WHO IS A MORAL MAN ? 

A moral person is one who has a God whom 
he feels he ought to obey, who consequently feels 
that that God has conveyed to him some in- 



Tlie Gospel of Common Sense. 213 



struction which he can understand and must 
obey, who, believing these two things, does obey 
the injunctions of his God, and simply and solely 
because they are divine injunctions. 
' Wherefore, the beginning of all morality, and of 
all religion, is the perfect subjection of the human 
to the divine, of the man to his God. He could 
not be a moral personality himself if he could not 
rebel against that God, and there would be no 
moral element in any cultivated thought, feeling, 
or action unless that culture were undertaken of 
choice on the part of the man. In other words, 
if God did compel a man to do certain things, 
keep His commandments for instance, there would 
be no morality in a life thus poured by the hand 
of God like molten lead into the moulds God has 
made. Submit yourselves assumes, therefore, the 
personal freedom of those addressed, and their 
capability of cherishing ethical thoughts and feel- 
ings, and of performing ethical acts. The added 
phrase, to God," makes the submission moral. 

There can come no peace to any man who 
struggles against God. There will always be 
trouble in his moral nature. Peace comes with 
harmony, and harmony with accord, and accord 
with the rule of the superior over the inferior and 
the submission of the inferior to the superior. 
Wherefore, submission to God is the beginning of 
all good living. It will involve breaking with the 
world, denying the supremacy of society, throw- 



214 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 



ing off the yoke of Mammon, and drawing out the 
whole life by the rule of God. 

WHAT IS A DEVIL ? 

A devil is whatever strives to draw us away 
from that allegiance to God. The devil is the 
prince of the power of the air ; the exerter of an 
influence as impalpable and as invisible as the 
air, and yet as pervasive; what we sometimes call 

the spirit of the age." Him we ought to resist. 
It is a degrading superstition which makes men 
feel, if they do not exactly believe it, that the 
devil is omnipotent. In these brief apophthegms, 
James sets forth picturesquely the spiritual dy- 
namics in the spiritual world. As cunning in any 
individual produces cowardice, so with all his sub- 
tlety and strength the devil is a coward. Any 
resolute child can put him to flight. All one 
needs is to resist the devil. The strongest and 
loftiest saint will be tempted, but the youngest 
and feeblest child need not yield to temptation. 
The wrong is not in being tempted, but in not 
resisting. If men who are drunken or licentious, 
would set even their enfeebled moral wills reso- 
lutely to never tasting a drop of that which intox- 
icates, to never looking upon that which tempts ; 
if they would thoroughly believe and perpetually 
act upon this brief saying of James, as embodying 
an inflexible principle in the spiritual world, Re- 
sist the devil, and he will flee from you," how 
triumphant would become lives which now sue- 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 215 



cumb to evil. But it is submission to God which 
gives power to resist the devil. 

WHY MEN DO NOT SUBMIT TO GOD. 
One reason why men do not submit to God is, 
that He is in their imagination something afar off, 
a distant, dim ideal, instead of a real personality 
very close to them. God is near every one of us. 
In Him we live and move and have our being. 
But who has not learned that there may be per- 
sonal nearness co-existing with moral and spirit- 
ual distance } How often husband and wife have 
eaten every meal at the same table, and slept to- 
gether every night in the same bed, with their 
affections as far from each other as could be those 
of any two total strangers. How often between 
husband and wife have been put all the lands and 
the seas of a hemisphere, while every waking hour 
of the day, and often in dreams, they were near 
each other. 

" So near and yet so far*' is an oft-quoted ex- 
pression, to signify physical contiguity existing 
at the same moment with spiritual distance. 

So far and yet so near " is the expression of an 
experience very common to those who love the 
Lord. We cannot draw nearer to Him who is 
everywhere present, so far as locality is con- 
cerned, but we can draw near in heart. Jehovah 
was as near to the people on the plain as He was 
to Moses on the Mount ; and Moses on the 
Mount with God, would have been no nearer God 



2i6 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



if the heart of Moses had been down in the plain 
with the golden calf. 

DRAWING NIGH TO COD. 

This drawing nigh to God is the expression of 
a specific operation of the general law of attrac- 
tion in the spiritual world. In the physical world 
there is no volition ; in the spiritual world there 
is. You may will to lessen the attraction which 
some things have upon you, and you may will to 
increase the power of the attraction of others. 
What is implied in drawing near to God, seems 
to involve a cultivation of reverence for Him. 
That reverence presupposes a belief in His ex- 
istence, in the greatness of His character, and in 
the claims which He has upon our souls. 

All men who have had any spiritual expe- 
rience, know that it is possible to increase this 
reverence for the great God. The word, also, is 
as old as the Old Testament Scripture. It means 
an act of dedication to God. We go forward to 
Him. The use of all spiritual sanctuaries is, that 
by going to the holy places, a man may indicate, 
and at the same time increase, the approaches 
which he makes reverentially in his spirit to 
God. 

It implies also spiritual intimacy with God, and 
increasing knowledge of His character, of His 
ways, of His will toward the children of men. It 
implies an alertness of the intellect, and of the 
heart, toward God's truths and God's love, which 



The Gospel of Common Se7ise, 2iJ 

may be represented by a little child's quick ear 
for the least call of its mother's voice. It will be 
shown by a man' feelings everywhere for God, 
that haply he may find Him nigh, and by his in- 
tense desire to know, as the smitten Saul of Tar- 
sus did, what the Lord would have him do. 

We are perpetually meeting in society with two 
classes of men, both of whom are seeking peace 
and happiness. One put God far away ; when 
they remember God, they are troubled. They 
never open the Bible, they never kneel in prayer, 
they never assemble themselves with the saints. 
They go as far as they can from everything which 
reminds them of the divine sovereignty, hoping, 
by forgetfulness of God, to lose also a sense of 
their own danger. There are other men, who 
watch every sign that stirs in the heavens above, 
and in the earth beneath, that if possible they 
may detect some signal of the hand of God, and 
find some divine finger pointing in the way of 
right ; and they are always rewarded. 

ILLUSTRATED BY THE CASE OF ABRAHAM. 

The story is told (Genesis i8) of the patriarch 
Abraham's sitting in the tent door, in the heat of 
the day, on the plains of Mamre. He lifted up 
his eyes and saw three men. A man who was 
always looking for God would hail any new 
appearance, as probably some little larger open- 
ing in the veil which hangs before our natural 
sense and excludes the spiritual world. And so 



2i8 The Gospel of Common Sense 



it is said that Abraham ran to meet them, and 
bowed himself toward the ground. If he had 
been under the influence of an evil superstition, 
or if he had been a man who feared to know more 
of God, he would have run, through the back of 
his tent, out into the plain and away from God, 
and have missed that blessed interview which 
changed his whole life and became a benediction 
to the world. 

THE CASE OF MOSES. 

If, also, Moses, while keeping the flock of Jethro, 
his father-in-law, in the backside of the desert 
(Exodus 3) had turned away in fright from the 
flaming bush, another interview would have been 
avoided, an interview which has changed the his- 
tory of the world. This instance affords, also, an 
illustration of the results to which men are led 
who are devoutly scientific. He had stept aside 
to see why the bush was not burned. He was 
sure God was doing something there, and he 
wished to see what it was, when God, out of the 
burning bush, called his name. If he had been 
foolishly or sinfully superstitious, he would have 
fled in dismay down the crags of Horeb. Instead of 
this, when he heard his name called, he answered, 

Here am I." Here the steps of the right-minded 
man are shown. First, he studies what God is 
doing ; then he hears what God is saying, and 
when the call is made to him, he gives that high 
ethical answer, Here am L" There was no 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 2tg 



danger that he should become too intimate with 
God ; there is no danger that any of us shall. 
God taught him where to stop. A man who 
wishes to be a really true man will keep on 
going when God starts him, and never cease till 
God halts him ; when halted, he will stay there 
forever, or until God command him to move. 
THE CASE OF ISAIAH. 

A similar experience came to Isaiah, in the year 
that King Uzziah died, when he saw the Lord 
sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. His 
train filling the temple, surrounded by the sera- 
phim, who cried to one another, and said, " Holy, 
holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts, and the whole 
earth is full of His glory," until the posts of the 
door moved at the voice of them that cried. But 
he did not fly ; he simply humbled himself unto 
God, and a live coal was taken by the hands of 
a seraph, and laid on his lips, till his iniquity was 
taken away and his sin purged (Isa. 6). 

Now how shall we draw near to God ? Where 
is God ? God is in Christ (2 Cor. 5 : 19). The 
nearer I can get to this blessed personality, in my 
understanding of His true character, in my imbib- 
ing of His spirit, in my intimate co-operation with 
His plans for human advancement, I shall be 
drawing nearer to God. There are the Holy Scrip- 
tures ; they have become to the modern Church 
what the pavilion of Jehovah was to His ancient 
people ; namely, a pillar of cloud by day and of light 



220 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

by night. I draw near, therefore, unto God when 
I bring myself close to all the promises God hath 
made to me in the Sacred Scriptures ; and I draw 
near to God when I give my affectionate belief to 
all the doctrines which are taught in the Sacred 
Scriptures. The one is my cloud to protect me 
from evil while engaged in the work of the day, 
and the other is my light to brighten me in the 
night of my trouble. The mind of the Spirit is 
the word of God the heart of Jesus is the word 
of God ; the truth of the Father is the word of 
God. As I bring my intellect, my heart, and my 
life, closer and closer to the blessed Book, I am 
drawing nigher and nigher to God. 

The law of attraction prevails here also, and 
brings from the pen of James the blessed assurance 
that, **if we draw near to God, He will draw near 
to us " ; and He Himself hath revealed to us, in all 
the record the Bible gives of His intercourse with 
His saints, how one step of theirs toward God is 
helped by the rapid approach of God unto them. 
Nowhere in Scripture is this more touchingly shown 
than in the many-sided story of the return of 
the Prodigal Son. Ruined, humiliated, degraded, 
and dejected, he slowly comes toward his father's 
house. He knows how good his father is ; but 
knows, also, how vile he is himself. When the 
father sees him, he does not re-enter his house and 
shut the portals of his mansion against his boy. 
He does not go down the avenue with slow, ma- 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 221 

jestic steps, not moving one foot until his son has 
moved two ; but on the wings of loving merciful- 
ness and fatherly affection, he rushes to his son. 
And while that son does not dare to look him 
straight in the eyes, much less to put his soiled 
hands on the sacred person of his father, the 
father wraps his son in the arms of his love, and 
covers him with the caresses of his affection. So, 
the man who draws near to God, God draws with 
great rapidity toward Himself. 

CLEANSED HANDS. 
Cleanse the hands, ye sinners.'* In Scripture 
language this phrase is always used to mean the 
putting away of evil deeds. As the feet repre- 
sent the course which a man takes, and show 
the direction of his life, the hands are always 
known as the instruments for doing. The cleans- 
ing of the hands, therefore, signifies the putting 
away of evil deeds. One must cease to do evil 
before one can learn to do well. The very order 
in which JAMES puts the ideas here, is the order 
of the Old Testament Scripture. Those who as- 
cend into the hill of the Lord are those who have 
clean hands and a pure heart (Ps. 24 : 4). And 
David said, " I will wash my hands in innocency ; 
so will I compass Thine altar, O Lord." But ex- 
terior reformation is of but little help to a man ; 
the work must go deeper ; his heart must be 
cleansed. If all the badness of a past life could 
be taken and cast into the midst of the sea, there 



222 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



is still the corrupt heart, which will reproduce all 
the evil of a life. The fruit of the tree will be of 
the nature of the tree, and it is intimated that 
while the sin of the life comes from wicked ac- 
tivity, the sin of the heart comes from double- 
mindedness. There must be no vacillation. The 
love of the world must be given up thor- 
oughly ; there is no sanctification till all affec- 
tions are given to God. The want of purity of 
heart is evidently produced by double-minded- 
ness. None can come to these experiences who 
are not afflicted, who do not afflict themselves, 
whose grief is not really deep, the remembrance 
of whose sins does not bow them down to the 
very ground. 

When conviction for a man's sin takes hold of 
him, it is so natural that he should attempt to 
comfort himself before getting rid of his sins ; 
and it is because there is some sort of temporary 
comfort, at least some forgetfulness, to be found 
by engaging in other things, that men do not go 
immediately with penitence and faith to God, for 
absolution and for cleansing. A very striking 
instance of this is recorded in Isaiah (22 : 12), 
**And in that day did the Lord God of Hosts 
call to weeping, and to mourning, and to bald- 
ness, and to girding with sackcloth. And behold, 
joy and gladness, selling oxen and killing sheep, 
eating flesh and drinking wine. Let us eat and 
drink, for to-morrow we shall die." James warns 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 223 



us against this fatal fallacy, this tremendous mis- 
take of endeavoring to narcotize our convictions 
by sinful pleasures. When, under the preaching 
of the Gospel, our souls are struck with the ar- 
rows of conviction for our sins, let us not go out 
and attempt to drown those disturbing convic- 
tions in wine, and wear away those salutary dis- 
tresses in wassail. That is what was done in the 
days of Isaiah. God knew what was necessary 
for the souls of His people; but instead of obey- 
ing Him, they endeavored to put out of their 
minds the call of God which they were disobey- 
ing, and so they were destroyed. 

If some one could have come upon their feasts, 
and turned their laughter into mourning and their 
joy into sadness, they might have been saved. 
How instable a thing is laughter after all. There 
is a time to laugh and a sense of humor is whole- 
some; but when one comes to think carefully over 
his past life and recall his seasons of hilarity, how 
little they appear to have contributed to the up- 
building of his character. Jokes and witticisms 
which gave us our laughter have made almost 
no permanent impression upon our character or 
destiny. 

Nothing can be a greater mistake than to sup- 
pose that religious humility is at all akin to in- 
tellectual or spiritual degradation. He that 
humbles himself before God, need humble himself 
before no man. It is impossible to think of the 



224 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

archangel in heaven as a degraded being or the 
cherubim and seraphim as degraded beings, be- 
cause they all veil their faces with their wings 
and bow before the Father of eternity, as He sits 
on the supreme throne of the universe, and cry to 
Him, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty ; 
heaven and earth are full of the majesty of Thy 
glory." That leaves no place for archangehc or 
seraphic or cherubic glory, and none of those lofty 
beings desire any glory that is apart from that of 
God. 

EVIL SPEAKING. 

In the next verses (ii, 12), jAMES warns his 
brethren against evil speaking. 

^'Do 11 A speak one against another, brethren. 
He who speaketh against his brother and con- 
demneth his brother^ speaketh against the law and 
condemneth the law. But if thou condemnest the 
law^ thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. 
One there is, a Law-giver able to save and to de- 
stroy. Thou, who art thou, that judgest another f 

There are few more evident and more painful 
indications of the corruption of our nature than 
the general tendency to detraction. In all ages 
of the world, men seem to be more able to dis- 
play their wit and their other intellectual resources 
in calumny than in eulogy. When a man comes to 
you, and says, I heard a man speak about you 
yesterday," you immediately take it for granted 
that that man said something against you. It is 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 225 

painful to note that the tendency of human nature 
is exactly adverse to a common-sense principle, 
which is assumed in all Christian courts of law, 
in criminal cases, namely, that a man must be 
presumed to be innocent until he be proved to be 
guilty. In Christian society, the mode of proce- 
dure is that in Turkish courts, namely, the assump- 
tion that the defendant is guilty, rolling upon him 
the necessity of establishing his innocence. Few 
things can be conceived more hurtful than this. 
Moreover, in most instances of detraction, the 
person is absent, and so ordinarily has not an op- 
portunity of even attempting the gravely difficult 
task of establishing his innocence. 

SPIRIT OF CONTRADICTION. 

Akin to this is the spirit of contradiction, which 
leads so many people to take it for granted that 
whatever opinion or sentiment has originated with 
another must therefore be wrong. These two 
courses of conduct lead to very many of 
the ills of society. Detraction is hurtful every 
way. It hurts the detractor by increasing the 
power of the habit of evil-speaking. It injures 
the listener by increasing the pessimistic tenden- 
cies of his own heart and his want of confidence 
in human nature. It injures the absent by a 
denial of his right of self-defence. 

EVIL HEARING. 

Many of the injurious effects of evil-speaking 
might be avoided if men could be made to feel the 



226 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



sin of evil-hearing. To listen to the calumny is 
only a less sin than to utter it. If every Christian 
man determined that he would immediately rise 
and leave the room the very moment any one 
began to speak evil of the absent, the rebuke 
would go far to silence the voice of the detractor. 
It is because we love to hear evil of our neighbor 
that his neighbor loves to speak evil of him. He 
sees it gives us pleasure, and the conversationalist 
has his delight in the enjoyment which he sees he 
imparts to his listener. 

THE MOSAIC LAW. 
James strengthens his appeal to his brethren by 
calling their attention to the law — which here may 
mean either the Mosaic law by itself, or, the 
Mosaic law of right completed by the Christian 
law of love. If it refer alone to the former, this 
is the last time that the law of Moses is mentioned 
in the Sacred Scriptures. That law has very 
severe denunciations of calumny, slander and 
other evil-speaking ; so that he who is guilty of it, 
condemns the Mosaic law. If the latter, then 
Christians are all the more guilty when they 
indulge in evil-speaking, because, while the law 
came by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus 
Christ. Those to whom* James wrote, prided 
themselves on their zeal for the law ; but," says 
he, habitual evil-speaking is a course of conduct 
which denies that the law which forbids it is a 
good law." An evil-speaker says, by his course of 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 



227 



conduct, either that Moses and Christ were wrong 
in their judgment, or that neither has any au- 
thority over the detractor's conscience. It is to 
be noticed here, that the phrases he that 
speaketh against his brother " and condemneth 
his brother,'* do not indicate a soHtary perform- 
ance of the act, but do point to the habit of evil- 
speaking. But we must remind ourselves, how 
difficult it is to speak evil of a neighbor occasion- 
ally without falling into the dreadful habit. 

ONE LAWGIVER. 

He furthermore strengthens his appeal to them 
by calling their attention to that One who is the 
supreme law-giver ; and the words which he uses, 
show that he certainly means Jesus the Christ as 
the law-giver, and His Gospel as the law, even if 
Moses be included. Christ is the one law-giver to 
His Church, and no man has a right to make a 
law for believers which Christ Himself has not 
distinctly made. So when these worldly-minded, 
envious and calumniating Hebrew-Christians un- 
dertook to lay down laws for the guidance of their 
brethren, and undertook to judge and condemn 
their brethren by their own standard, they were 
assuming the tremendous responsibility which 
belongs to Jehovah's Christ. 

No men and no body of men who have not the 
ability to enforce laws are empowered to make 
laws. Now there is only one in the universe who 
is able to save and to destroy a man's spirit. No 



228 The Gospel of Commo7i Sense. 

private Christian can do it ; no ecclesiastic, high 
or low, can do it ; no Church councils have power 
to make any law to bind any conscience, because 
none of these can either lift a soul to heaven or 
cast it down to hell. There is One Law-giver and 
One Judge and One Executive in the universe, 
and that is the Lord. What a terrible thing it is 
for any man to put himself in the place of the 
One who was enthroned on Sinai as the world's 
moral law-giver, and was enthroned on Golgotha 
as the world's spiritual Savior, and shall be en- 
throned on the judgment-seat on the last day as 
the universal Judge. 

THE RESTLESS SPIRIT. 
In the time of the writer of this epistle, those 
Hebrews who had become Christians were much 
infected with the restless spirit of those who had 
continued as Israelites of the strictest set, and 
with them were scattered abroad, wandering about 
amongst all peoples ; and because they had no 
home, and were not long enough settled for 
agricultural pursuits, their passion and their skill 
for trading grew and carried them everywhere. 
They were betrayed into a presumptuous con- 
fidence that all things would continue as they 
were. This led them into forming plans of the 
future without reference to God ; and to this fault 
James calls their attention (4, 13-16): 

Here, now, ye who are accustomed to say, * 7^?- 
day and to-morrow, and we shall journey to this 



TJie Gospel of Coniinoii Sense. 229 

or that city, and work there a year, and traffic, and 
get gain ; ' ye, who do 7tot know aught of to- 
morrow, {Why, what kind of thing is your life ? 
Why, a vapor it is, which for a little time is in 
sight, but even then is vanishing^ histead of your 
saying, ' If the Lord will, we shall both live and do 
this or that.' But now you rejoice in your boast- 
ings. All such rejoicing is evil!'' 

The conditions of the times were such that or- 
dinarily the Jewish trader took the goods that 
were cheap in one place, and carried them to an- 
other, where they were in more demand, and 
consequently brought a higher price ; and so he 
would go from place to place, buying in one and 
selling in another, all the while accompanying 
his commodities. This involved his stopping a 
short time in each place visited, that he might 
complete his mercantile transaction. Thus he 
would move to Damascus, Antioch, Alexandria, 
Smyrna, Corinth, wherever he could buy at the 
smallest and sell at the largest price. 

SELF-CONFIDENCE. 

It is easy to see how such a merchant would 
glide into self-confidence, and forget to calculate 
for casualties in making schedules of journeyings 
for himself; saying, ''I will start to-day, or, if 
that be not convenient, I will start to-morrow, 
and go first to this city, and then to that ; and 
when I reach the designated place, I will enter 
upon selling and buying of merchandise ; in doing 



230 The Gospel of Co7nmon Seftse, 

which my former experience justifies me in be- 
lieving that I shall increase my estate/' Such 
entire self-confidence was injurious to that state 
of mind a Christian should maintain, in which he 
would lean wholly upon God ; daily praying, 

Thy will be done," and every day striving to 
fulfil his own prayer, as much as in him lay, by 
doing the will of God. 

James recalls them from their folly by the sharp 
question, What kind of a thing is your life ? " Is 
it like the Appian Way, a road laid on the solid 
ground, which you can measure mile by mile, 
which you can pass over to-day and come back 
twenty years from this and find the same road 
still there ? No ; human life is never such a 
thing as that. On the contrary, it is like a vapor, 
a vapor which may rise into the air, and spread 
itself out largely, and become splendid with the 
rays of the rising or setting sun ; but still it is 
a vapor ; it does not continue for two successive 
minutes in the same form. It is a thing which is 
visible to the eye ; but while one is looking upon 
it, it is in the very moment of vanishing. To 
rely upon that as a solid thing, is to build castles 
in the air. The temper of mind and the mode of 
speech which befit a Christian are in the saying, 

If the Lord will, we shall both live and do the 
things which we propose." 

THE '*DEO VOLENTE." 

We are not to understand that every time a Chris- 
tian man speaks of his projects he is to bring in a 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 



231 



Deo volente phrase. If that were done every time 
an intention were announced it is obvious that it 
would soon make conversation ridiculous, if any 
attention were paid to it ; if the words were 
spoken without attention, they would degenerate 
into cant, that is, the use of words which we had 
emptied of their meaning, and would also savor 
of profanity, because it would be taking the name 
of God in vain. 

But on the other hand, if there be not formed in 
our spirits the habit of continual reference to the 
will of God, and continual reliance upon His per 
sonal protection and providence, there will come 
into the spirit a boasting which will be neither 
beautiful nor profitable. One thing is certain, we 
must always take God into the calculation ; we 
must always have reference to His will ; we shall 
thus secure for ourselves the divine guidance, for 
the promise is that if in all our ways we acknowl- 
edge the Lord, He will direct our paths (Prov. 
3 :6); and then the disappointments of life will not 
smite us with such tremendous force. We are not 
principals, we are agents. We are doing the work 
of God under the direction of God. If our work 
miscarry, we can refer what seems the mishap to 
God, and thus change it into what may be the 
very best thing for us and for all men. 

The moral lessons of this admonition are as 
timely and as binding in our days as in the days in 
which it was written, and perhaps more so. There 



232 The Gospel of Conunoii Sense. 

never has been an age in which there was so 
much traveling as in oiirs. More persons went 
from one place to another last year than in any 
other year since the world began. There were 
more journeys undertaken last year than ever be- 
fore. It is an age of movement ; the invention 
of modes of motion is the passion of our times. 
The extension of railways on the planet during 
the past decade has been something enormous. 
Never did so many people run to and fro as are 
so running now. 

The same is true of trade. More people are 
shipping and receiving goods than ever before. 
There was a time when the spirit of the feudal 
system made trade below the dignity of persons 
of what was called quality.'* In modern times, 
in the Southern States of our country, the same 
spirit prevailed before the Civil War ; so that no 
lady ever engaged in any other work than house- 
wifery, no lady would even sell a poem or a story 
for money. But almost every man trades in Eng- 
land and in the South to-day. Men are keeping 
shop whose grandfathers would have considered it 
more disgrace to have bought and sold than to 
have committed almost any kind of sin, men 
whose fathers could boast that for five hundred 
years not a single ancestor had ever made a shil- 
ling by trade. To-day women, with noble blood 
in their veins, are opening shops in London for 
millinery and other dry goods. Business is done 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 233 



on a larger scale than ever before ; bargains are 
made to amounts that exceed the worth of prin- 
cipalities. Where men used to buy, as it were, 
handfuls of sand, men are to-day buying and selling 
great mountain ranges. If ever there were a time 
in which the injunction of J AMES should be heeded, 
this is the time. 

Into every syndicate God should be taken as a 
partner. Every journey should be undertaken 
under His direction. All success should be 
ascribed to Him, not necessarily openly and by 
word of mouth, certainly never ostentatiously, but 
as certainly, always really and devoutly. Other- 
wise our boastings will be evil, and will confirm 
us in that self-confidence which by and by will 
be our destruction. 



X. 



The Sin of Uselessness. 

CHAPTER IV., 17. 
A PRINCIPLE OF VARIED APPLICATION. 

WE can imagine that, after delivering all 
these precepts, J AMES could fancy hear- 
ing his brethren reply, Oh, all this is 
very true ; we have read it in the Scriptures/* And 
that leads him to utter in one sentence a principle 
of varied application, and of a very wide-spread 
importance : 

Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good, and 
doeth it not, to him it is sin'' 

Perhaps few of us have considered what multi- 
tudes there are everywhere who rely upon their 
knowledge of the truth, while that knowledge is 
absolutely inoperative. They never*' do.'* They 
hear, but do not put into practice. They read, but 
they do not allow it to regulate their lives. What 
most men in Christendom need to-day is not 
so much more instruction in morals as a greater 
stimulation of conscience. It is a tremendous 
responsibility, which men assume, to hear three or 
four religious discourses a week, while they are 
allowing no portion of the truth to have any 
influence on their practical lives. It is a sin to 



Tlie Gospel of Common Sense. 



235 



hold back in my intellect a truth which I ought to 
allow to affect my emotions and to regulate my 
intercourse with my fellow-men. 

SINS OF ''commission" AND ''OMISSION." 

This is so important a subject that it must be 
dwelt upon. How common is the classification 
of sins into those of commission and of omission ; 
and how common is the mistake that the former 
are the more hurtful. Even in our prayers we 
ask pardon for "our sins of commission" and 
" our sins of omission," and the tones of our voice 
show that the latter are put apart, as in a paren- 
thesis, and are considered not at all heinous. 
We must arouse ourselves to the truth that sins of 
omission may be much worse than the worst sins 
of commission, as they are called. These latter, 
such as murder and adultery, may be committed 
in the heat of passion, and may break out perhaps 
only once in a man's life ; his character may 
then be like a house which has been smitten by 
a storm-blast, having a chimney knocked down, 
or the corner of the roof torn off ; but sins of 
omission are like a dry rot which reduces the 
whole edifice to such a state that at any moment 
it may drop into a heap of dust. 

In studying this subject we may consider the 
classification of the commandments in the moral 
law into those which enjoin and those which 
forbid ; those which say "Thou shalt," and those 
which say " Thou shalt not." And we are think- 



236 The Gospel of Conunon Sense, 



ing, and talking, and acting as if the violation of 
the latter were all the sins worth accounting. 
For instance, we never for a moment doubt that 
to violate the commandment **Thou shalt not 
steal," or the commandment *'Thou shalt not 
kill," or the commandment ''Thou shalt not com- 
mit adultery," is a sin. But who charges his con- 
science equally with the violation of the com- 
mandment Remember that thou keep holy the 
Sabbath Day," or Honor thy father and thy 
mother" ? And so, if a man has observed every 
one of the Ten Commandments which has the 
word not in it, and is suddenly arrested as a sin- 
ner, he turns upon his accuser with the surprised 
inquiry, ''Why, what have I done?" and does 
not perceive that that very question points to 
the ground of his condemnation. Yes, that is a 
much more important question than the other, 
" What have I not done ? " It is the question that 
shall be urged upon the conscience at the final 
judgment, " What hast thou done ? " 

We must remind ourselves that sin consists not 
only in disregarding the prohibitions, but also in 
failing to come up to the requirements, of the 
positive injunctions of the law of God. We, 
whose lives have always been perfectly honest as 
touching the property of other people, are to re- 
member that the same authority which binds us 
to honesty in the Fourth Commandment, equally 
binds us to beneficence in the commandment 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 237 



*'Do good unto all men." Now, if I have had an 
opportunity to do good and have not done it, I 
am just as certainly a sinner as if I had had an 
opportunity to abstract my neighbor's property 
and had stolen it. 

THE PROCESS OF DESCENT. 
Let us trace the history of the fall. The ac- 
count given us in Holy Scripture shows that man 
was first led away from righteousness and then 
led into sin. The history of that one transaction 
is an epitome of the lives of good people in all 
ages, who have fallen away. Sins of omission 
precede sins of commission, and as invariably, sins 
of commission succeed sins of omission. The 
man that neglects the study of the Sacred Script- 
ures and the cultivation of a prayerful spirit in pri- 
vate, is a man whose life comes to be stained with 
violations of those commandments which forbid 
certain courses of conduct. 

THE PROCESS OF ASCENT. 

So when a man is converted he retraces these 
steps. He first ceases to do evil " and then 
** learns to do well." Such also is the effect of the 
atonement, which we have through our Lord Jesus 
Christ. It does these two things in their order : 
first, it secures a man his pardon; and then it sets 
him upon paths of usefulness. Mere harmlessness 
may be possible for inanimate things. A stone, 
or the stump of a tree on the inaccessible height 
of a mountain may do no harm to anybody. But 



238 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

how is it possible that any living thing should 
maintain that position in the universe ? More 
especially, how is it possible that a sentient 
being, with a conscience and such other activities 
as belong to man as man, could remain in the 
neutral position of a stock or a stone ? Every 
human being is either doing good or doing evil 
every day of his life. 

At the point of time when a soul receives the 
pardon of his sins, he enters on a new spiritual de- 
parture. From that moment it is impossible that 
he shall lead a life of mere uselessness. If he 
could, one day in such a state would be a day of 
sin. 

Is there anything which stands out more 
distinctly in the teachings of our Lord Jesus 
Christ than the doctrine of the sin of not doing 
good } Is there anything upon which, by pre- 
cept and by picturesque illustration in parable, 
He laid more and more emphasis than upon the 
teaching that a man must not only be harmless, 
but that he must be good and do good 1 
THE ACTED PARABLE. 

One of the most impressive of the teachings of 
Jesus is an unspoken parable taught by one of 
His most impressive acts. One morning He saw 
a fig-tree in the road. The tree had leaves, and 
therefore, according to its nature, should have 
had fruit. Jesus cursed it ; it was the only thing 
He cursed in all His wonderful career ; and th^ 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 239 



tree withered. What was there in this tree which 
brought such a doom ? Was the fig-tree a bad 
growth amongst the trees ? On the contrary, 
the tree itself, when it bore fruit, gave that which 
is sweet to the taste and nourishing to the body. 
Was the tree doing any harm ? Was it exuding 
poison, which might fall like the distillation of the 
upas tree on the eyes of the sleeper below, or be 
destructive to the birds and insects that alighted 
amid its leaves? Was it even keeping other 
plants from growing ? Is there the slightest in- 
timation that there was anything harmful in the 
existence of the tree by the road-side ? Not the 
slightest. But there is a fearful lesson of the 
wrong of unfruitfulness, which, in the case of this 
tree, was aggravated by the additional sin of pre- 
tence. A fig-tree that has not figs has no right 
to leaves. There is a subsidiary lesson here : one 
of the dangers of unfruitfulness is the temptation 
which it affords to hypocrisy. So wide-spread is 
the lesson that all religious people should lead 
lives of beneficence. When a man stands in the 
Church and does no good, he is very liable to put 
on the pretence of usefulness, as the tree did. 
THE DESTRUCTIVE NAPKIN. 

There is the well-known parable of Jesus (Mat- 
thew 25) of the talents Avhich a lord had com- 
mitted to his servants. 

He to whom had been committed five, doubled 
them ; he who had two, doubled them ; and the 



240 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



latter received precisely the commendation which 
was given to the former ; showing that it is not 
the amount in the result, but it is the activity in 
the life, which the Lord approves. There was a 
third servant to whom one talent had been com- 
mitted. When the lord came to take account of 
his servants, the man with the one talent came 
forward with it, and returned it precisely as he had 
received it. There was not the slightest portion 
lost. In weight and value it was exactly as it was 
when months or years ago his lord had put it in 
his hand. He had not spent any portion of his 
lord's money upon his desires or his needs. No 
selfishness had been sufficient to induce him to 
run away with his lord's money. No companion- 
ship had induced him, by any social seduction, to 
waste any of his lord's money in riotous living. 
He had not been careless of his talent, allowing 
others to take away his lord's money. He had 
preserved it by carefully wrapping it in a napkin 
and putting it where no thief could break in. He 
had guarded it vigilantly and preserved the knowl- 
edge of the hiding-place. He considered himself 
a brilliant example of a harmless man. And he 
was. When the day of account came, he appeared 
promptly and, with an air of great self-satisfaction, 
more so apparently than either of his fellow- 
servants, he cheerfully said to his lord, *^ There, 
take — that is thine." 

He believed his lord to be a severe master, and yet 



The Gospel of Coimnon Sense, 241 

he felt that if, after long absence, upon his return, 
his master should find exactly the talent which 
the servant returned all unhurt, there could be no 
fault found. And yet how tremendous were the 
words of the master in reproof of his servant ! 
What was his fault ? Nothing but this : that he 
had had an opportunity to increase something 
committed to his care, and he had neglected to 
make such improvement. And yet he fell under 
the condemnation of such a sentence as this from 
the lips of his master : Take therefore the talent 
from him and give it unto him which has ten 
talents ; for unto every one that hath shall be given, 
and he shall have abundance, but from him that 
hath not, shall be taken away even that which he 
hath ; and cast ye the unprofitable servant into 
outer darkness. There shall be weeping and 
gnashing of teeth.'* 

SIN IN PURPLE. 
That outer darkness reappears in the parable of 
the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16). What- 
ever opinion may be held as to whether the 
conclusion of the story lay in this world or in the 
world to come, there can be no difficulty as to 
this : that the intention is to present in the most 
vivid language which Jesus could employ the 
dread sinfulness of a useless life, and the horror 
with which it is regarded by the Heavenly Father. 
What was the character of this rich man? Did he 
fail to read the Holy Scriptures? Did he fail to 



242 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



attend upon public service ? Did he ever wrong any 
man of his money, or rob any woman of her virtue ? 
Was he a thief, a Har, a murderer? What had he 
done ; what against God, what against man ? So 
far as the record goes, absolutely nothing. His 
circumstances put him beyond the temptations 
which lead to the commission of many sins. He 
was rich ; he had abundance ; he did not have to 
steal his bread in order to preserve his life. He 
not only did no harm, but he did not stand in the 
way of other people's doing good. He did not 
prevent his servants from shaking out broken 
dainties and tidbits from the table-cloths which 
served at his own meals. When he passed out to 
his business or his pleasure and saw a loathsome 
pauper at his door, he did not kick him for being 
there, he did not even order his servants to remove 
him. But day by day this wretched beggar lay 
and had some food, enough indeed to sustain his 
life, for a long time, from the table of this rich man. 
What had he done ? Nothing, absolutely nothing, 
but this : he had had opportunity to be good to 
another, and had simply failed to do it. Yet 
when he died, he was in torments, such torments 
that led him to cry for a drop of water to cool his 
tongue. If human language can fix upon the 
memory by sentences more picturesque than 
these the sinfulness of not doing good, who will 
devise the song, or the sermon, or the story, more 
impressive than this parable of Jesus? 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 



243 



THE LAST JUDGMENT. 

If any one should think for a moment that this 
is a solitary case, let him read the twenty-fifth 
chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew, and 
follow up this and the parable of the talents with 
the account which Jesus gives of the general 
judgment ; when, before the throne of the glory 
of the Great Judge, shall be gathered all nations, 
and the King shall invite some into the Kingdom 
prepared for them, on the ground that their faith 
had been operative, and had led them to feed the 
hungry and give drink to the thirsty, and hos- 
pitality to the stranger, and clothes to the naked, 
and visits to the sick, and attention to the pris- 
oner. Then, when these have been gathered 
into the Kingdom, what shall become of all the 
others ? The Judge is represented as saying to 
them, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlast- 
ing fire prepared for the devil and his angels." 
He curses them ; He pronounces their doom. No 
fire was ever prepared for human beings, but 
there has been a fire prepared for the devil and 
his emissaries, and men may prepare themselves 
for the torture which that fire can inflict. 

According to the opinion of Him who knows 
the secrets of all hearts, how does one prepare 
one's self for such a doom as that } By Sabbath- 
breaking, lying, theft, robbery, adultery, murder ? 
Most surely these sins will make a man a fit com- 
panion for the devil and his staff. The Judge, 



244 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

however, says nothing of these so obvious things, 
but He does point to what as inevitably brings a 
man into fitness for companionship with the devil, 
namely, a life barren of all good. From this fear- 
ful rehearsal of the judgment scene by the Lord 
Jesus, the more fearful because it is uttered in 
such a quiet tone, we learn that one does not 
have to commit every capital offence in the law. 
Unfruitfulness, uselessness, the absence of benefi- 
cence — this will certainly bring a man to this 
dreadful doom. All one has to do is to live in a 
world where there is hunger and thirst and lone- 
liness and nakedness and sickness and imprison- 
ment, and not minister food and drink and com- 
panionship and clothing and visitation, to the 
least of one of Christ's brethren, that is, to the 
least of human beings, for Jesus Christ, the Son 
of Man, is the brother of all men. 

Those whom He says He will be compelled to 
condemn at the last judgment, will not simply 
be those who mistreated Him ; not some who had 
taken away the food He may have had in his 
hand, or dashed the cup of water from His lips 
when He was fevered, or stripped His raiment from 
Him, or cast Him into prison ; not simply those 
who spat upon His face, who lashed Him on the 
bare back, who pressed the thorn-crown into His 
holy brow, who nailed Him to the accursed 
cross ; but with them shall go all those who, 
knowing to do good^ do it not. 



TIic Gospel of Common Sense. 245 



Who shall be able to read these teachings of 
our Lord, and study His example, and remember 
that His human career is epitomized in the state- 
ment ^' He went about doing good" ; who shall 
study the career of His Apostles, and see what 
prodigiously fortifying power there was in their 
faith, which not only saved them, but sent them 
out to save others ; and shall not have impressed 
upon himself the great truth, that every hour of 
human life which is not spent in useful employ- 
ment is an hour of sin ? If James had written no 
other sentence, this last verse of his fourth chap- 
ter is enough to place him in the foremost ranks 
of all ethical teachers and win him an immortality 
of fame. 

COMMON SENSE APPLIES THE PRINCIPLE. 
In an age of such multifarious modes of inter- 
communication as our own time, it is easy to per- 
ceive how we all can learn modes of doing good 
much more rapidly than we can increase our 
ability to do good. The precept of JAMES must 
be read, therefore, in the light of common sense. 
The writer of these pages, as well perhaps as the 
reader, knows a thousand ways in which he can 
do good, where he has the ability to employ only 
five of them. An important question then arises 
as to the extent of our responsibility. That is 
plainly limited by our ability. No man can be 
held to answer for not doing what he cannot do. 
Then, when it is settled that all our ability to do 



^246 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

good must be employed, the selection has to be 
made from the many and multiform methods of 
usefulness which present themselves to our at- 
tention. 

THE NEAREST FIRST. 

Duty is created by obligation. Obligation is 
the result of many factors. Nearness is one of 
these. . My first obligation is to myself ; I know- 
how to do good to myself. Here is a personality 
to deal with from whom I am never absent. No 
mother, nor wife, nor child, can be as near me as 
myself. That very constancy of contiguity creates 
an obligation. The person who is to be the first 
object of my religious care is myself. There can 
be no obligation which precedes that which binds 
me to myself. Doing good to any human being 
is the treatment of him in such a manner as will 
tend to make him good. Being good means 
serving God. Now, each man must turn upon 
himself, and do all he can by preserving the 
health and nursing the powers of his body, cul- 
tivating the faculties of his intellect, purifying his 
emotions, and stimulating his spirit. If he knows 
any course of hygiene, or education, or devout 
exercise needed to accomplish these things, and 
he neglects it, he is so far forth a sinner. His 
neighbor does not have precedence of himself. 
THE IMPLICATION OF ALTRUISM. 

The great law of Jesus, which in this day is 
called altruism," namely, *'Thou shalt love thy 



The Gospel of Cominon Sense, 



247 



neiijhbor as thyself," impliedly makes the love of 
one's self precede the love of one's neighbor, and 
to be at once the foundation thereof and the 
model thereof. A man who neglects himself to 
improve the spiritual condition of his neighbor, 
makes a grave mistake. A man who neglects 
his own family out of philanthropy to his neigh- 
bors, is doing wrong. A man who neglects his 
church for some extra missionary work and plans 
of his own, is doing wrong. He is reversing the 
common-sense principle of Christian morals. 
The best thing a man can do for the world is to 
cultivate himself in such manner that if all the 
world followed his example the world would be 
vastly better. 

In the very doing of this a man acquires 
greater power to help his fellow-men to be better. 
In caring for his own household he is making a 
model after which if all the families of the earth 
lived the whole world would be better ; and he is 
training his family to be more useful to the com- 
munity to which they belong. His doing good 
to that which is farthest off does not excuse a 
man for neglecting that which is nearest him. 
It was no excuse for John Howard for neglecting 
his boy at home and letting him grow up to be 
a moral pest, that the father was looking after 
the prisoners incarcerated in distant jails of the 
kingdom. The rule is, Do NOW that which is 
nearest : discharge plain duties first, consider 



248 The Gospel of Common Sense, 

probable duties afterward. The doing of the 
former will give more wisdom and strength for 
the doing of the latter. 

KNOWLEDGE AGGRAVATES SIN. 

There is a collateral truth to that which is 
clearly expressed in the words of our author, and 
that truth is, Knowledge aggravates sinfulness. 
We cannot dissolve our responsibility by shutting 
our eyes to our opportunities ; on the contrary, if 
we have any unemployed powers, and there are 
not opportunities which press themselves upon 
our attention, we are bound to seek them. Let it 
never be forgotten what the lord said to his 
servant who had not improved the one talent : 
You ought to have put out my money.*' There 
is such a thing as economy of a whole life, and 
that word ^* economy " is a very comprehensive 
one. It means a study of the outlay of every- 
thing at our command. We are bound to study 
that there be no waste of physical, intellectual, or 
spiritual powers. We are to plan that each one 
shall be employed where and when and how it can 
do the most good. 

No one fails to see the truth of this in finance. 
A man studies to make an outlay of his money for 
two purposes, of increasing it and enjoying it. So 
also should a man study to make an outlay of 
everything else which may be accounted as among 
bis personal assets. And in the light of that 
truth follows another, namely, that the sin is 



Tlie Gospel of Coniffion Sense, 249 

always greater when the opportunity is presented 
to us, and shown to He within the circle of our 
ability. 

THE MONEY ILLUSTRATION. 

There is no illustration so comprehensible to 
every class of intellect as an illustration taken 
from money. To apply our principle, let us sup- 
pose a person with a very large income. Every 
cent of any income, great or small, is to be spent 
for God, because it is God's. The single question 
in spending any dime or shilling is. Will this have 
a tendency to make the relationship between God 
and man a happier and a more improving one ? 
A right-minded man can form the habit of bring- 
ing that principle to bear in the decision of every 
penny he spends for an apple and every dime he 
spends for a ride, and the principle may obtain 
such rule over his life that instinctively the 
question is settled, whether he ought to ride or 
walk, to eat or abstain. When a man's income is 
very large this becomes a serious matter, and 
often makes life burdensome. He cannot content 
his conscience, unless it be an evil conscience, 
with assigning to the promotion of influential 
efforts to do good, so small a proportion of his 
income as he did when that income was smaller. 

For instance, a Christian woman was a milliner 
in her early married life, and had no income but 
that which could be allowed her by her Chris- 
tian husband, who was a mechanic working on 



250 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



wages ; the two at the end of the year had very- 
little left after their modest and proper expenses 
were met, but nevertheless, they contrived to 
give one-tenth of their income to works of char- 
ity beyond their own family. That woman, in 
after life, was left a widow, with an income of five 
thousand dollars a month. If she contented her- 
self with giving only five hundred dollars a 
month to charities, she might be described sim- 
ply as a poor kind of Christian. Her conscience 
ought to have told her that she was living daily 
in sin. 

But even if she felt the full force of that, and 
then endeavored to live simply and quietly and 
expend her entire income over and above her 
proper needs on worthy works outside her family, 
she would soon come to the end of her respon- 
sibility. There would be presented to her so 
many causes that were really worthy, that four 
thousand dollars a month — four-fifths of her in- 
come set aside for charity — would not meet the 
demands of all. She must then determine for 
herself which of those calls are most binding on 
her. It is part of her education to determine 
such questions, and the settlement must be made 
not on any grounds of selfishness or vanity or 
other forms of worldliness, but on the simple 
ground of doing good. 

It is not every gift of money that does good. 
The mode, the direction, and the spirit of the gift 



Tlie Gospel of Cominjn Sense, 251 



have much to do with the result. The very 
moment it becomes known that a rich man has 
made a large gift of money there begins the in- 
pouring of applications from all quarters of the 
world. It is so even where a man is suspected 
of being where he can influence the rich. All 
pastors of men who are known to be wealthy and 
liberal are deluged with such applications. 

A friend of mine, who at the time could have 
drawn his check for twenty millions of dollars, 
once offered me five millions of dollars to meet 
the appeals made upon me for money, if I would 
give him a guarantee that that, divided up amongst 
those whom I knew to be needy, and those who 
knew me, would end all applications. He was a 
shrewd man ; he knew that I knew that if I had 
all the money in all the banks and vaults in 
America, it would not achieve that result ; that 
when it came to be known that I had money to dis- 
tribute, it would set the world howling after me. 
There must be at least forty millions of people in 
America who want a little more money for some- 
thing else. Now, in such a case as this, each per- 
son must regulate his outlay wisely, and never 
give anything, and never do anything, simply to 
get rid of the solicitors. 

FOUR WAYS OPE^N TO ALL. 

Are you willing and ready to do good as you 
have opportunity } Have you been interested in 
what has been written above in regard to persons 



252 The Gospel of Common Sense, 

of large means ? And do you say, I have very 
little money to give ; and I have very little bodily 
strength ; and I have very little intellectual force ; 
and I have a very small circle of influence " ? If 
these things be so, nevertheless, there must be 
some way in which you can do good, and you 
must know that way, and if you do not walk 
therein, remember that you are therefore a sinner. 
Money is not everything. It has been selected 
merely as an example. Everything whereby life 
can be modified comes under the rule. The poor- 
est and feeblest reader of this page can do four 
things which will be of very great use to the 
whole world. 

(i) Stand oict of the way of workers. If you 
cannot do much good, or fancy you can do 
none, at least do not stand in the way of those 
who can. In your own family, study how to 
cease to be an obstruction to those who have 
some ability to bring people into a better state. 
Do so in your church. Do so in any society to 
which you may belong. Everywhere there are 
people, professing to be Christians, who stand in 
the way of the world s progress. Every pastor 
is worried and overworked in striving to climb 
over or pull aside the dead logs, the almost 
worthless obstructionists in the church ; people 
who are constantly giving him trouble by their 
neglect of duties, by their bad tongues, or by the 
deadening influence of their lethargic lives. If 



Tlie Gospel of Common Sense. 



253 



you cannot help to extinguish a conflagration, 
for goodness' sake move out of the way of the 
engines that are flying to the rescue. 

(2) Then lend the whole pressure of your steady 
influence to the side of right. It may be a very little 
pressure. It may be only an ounce, but sixteen 
such pressures make a pound, and a couple of 
thousands of such pounds make a ton. You are 
not responsible for any portion of the pound be- 
yond your sixteenth ; but for that sixteenth you 
are responsible. The difference between an in- 
fluential effort and the steady pressure of in- 
fluence is very readily perceived. There are 
useful men who almost never make any effort 
the effect of which is perceived. They write no 
book, they deliver no discourse, they contribute 
no fund that the world, or any portion thereof, 
perceives and feels instantaneously ; but they 
always stand in with the good ; they always 
stand up for the right ; they are always counted 
for the truth. It was a woman, Hannah More, 
who invented the phrase, " The logic of the life." 
It embodies a splendid truth. There are thou- 
sands of lives no incident in one of which can be 
used to illustrate any particular truth, or assist in 
any particular cause, the sum total of each one 
of which is an unanswerable argument for the 
right. If no special passage in your life be so 
conspicuous as to arrest any man s attention, let 
your character, as a whole, make an impres- 
sion for the truth. Let its weight, however 



254 Gospel of Common Sense. 

little, press every one it touches away from the 
wrong and into the right. 

(3) Become a propagandist. You have some 
convictions, and there is at least one person with 
whom you talk sometimes. Endeavor to lay the 
weight of your convictions of any truth on the 
soul of your neighbor. Never mention your 
doubts, unless it be to those who can dissipate 
them, but always calmly and resolutely stand by 
your convictions. It will tell in the long run. 

(4) Be good. There is no way of doing good 
so thoroughly efficacious as being good. One 
good man given to a town is better than the gift 
of a park, or, it may be, of a library. One good 
man is worth more to a town than a hundred of 
the most learned men who are not good. One 
good man does not illuminate every spot along 
the shore, but he stands as a lighthouse from 
whose lamp, a foot or two in diameter, a light 
streams miles far over the dark seas of night, 
and enables the mariner to guide his bark away 
from the wrecking rocks. 

In all our efforts to be useful let us remember 
that it is the motive which sanctifies the good 
deed ; that works without faith are dead, even as 
faith without works is dead. In the Gospel 
sense, doing good means doing that for others 
which will enable them to do more to bring their 
human brothers into happier relations with the 
Heavenly Father, and so please the Heavenly 
Father. 



XL 



Impending Judgment. 

CHAPTER v., 1-6. 
A RECALL. 

IN coming to study the last chapter in this 
epistle, we must remind ourselves of the pri- 
mary design of the writer, namely, to reach 
those Jews who had become Christians with words 
of rebuke for the sins of which they had become 
guilty, and to recall them to the consolations of 
the Gospel of the blessed God. It does not i^eem 
to be an unreasonable or unnatural conjecture 
that James would suppose that this letter, pass- 
ing in the autograph or in copies among his 
scattered parishioners, would also find its way 
into the hands of Jews who were outside the 
Christian parish. This would in a measure ac- 
count for the tone of the opening of the fifth 
chapter. But it is not necessary to rely upon 
this alone in accounting for the startling phrase- 
ology. It is quite possible that there were rich 
people as well as poor among Hebrew-Christians. 
It is not unlikely that some of them had accumu- 
lated property by the industrial exercise of their 
skill in trade. His appeal would be applicable to 
them. There is also the rhetorical ground : by 



256 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



pointing out the follies and sins of the rich, a 
preacher or writer gives comfort to those who are 
poor, and who desire to maintain their integrity 
by keeping their virtue unbroken. 

For so thoughtful a writer as James all these 
three considerations might have had weight 
when he wrote the following searching words : 

^^Come now, ye rich, ye shouting ones ; weep for 
the miseries coming upon you. Your wealth hath 
rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. 
Your gold and silver are rusted, and their rust 
shall be for witness unto you^ and shall eat your 
flesh as fire. You have accumulated in the last 
days. See, the hire of the laborers who have mowed 
your fields which is kept back by you, crieth out; 
and the cries of those zvho have reaped have entered 
into the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived 
luxuriously upon the earth, and have been sportive 
and fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 
You have condemned, you have murdered the Just 
One; He doth not resist you!' 

It would be a great mistake ethically, and be 
doing great injustice to our author, if any one 
supposed that he indulged in anything like class- 
hate, or had any intent to nourish that low and 
wicked sentiment. There is no virtue nor vice in 
riches, and equally, no virtue nor vice in poverty. 
A rich man may be a good man and so may a 
poor man. The latter may be a bad man and so 
may a rich man. The rags of Lazarus did not 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 257 

bear him heavenward, neither did the purple and 
fine Hnen of Dives draw him hellward. A man's 
material property is altogether an outward con- 
dition. His moral character is altogether an in- 
ward estate, and yet, as we can perceive, the 
character modifies the condition, and the condi- 
tion may modify the character, for our growth in 
godliness. As great helps may be found in pov- 
erty as in riches. But both may become agencies 
for our spiritual deterioration. It is wise in any 
man to be very careful lest his outward condition 
damage his inward character. It is not having 
riches, however great, that is hurtful. All the 
world ought to know that wealth does not make 
superiority. poverty inferiority ; just as wealth 
cannot procure unalloyed bliss nor poverty make 
unmitigated evil. 

The three most important things about a man's 
wealth are these: first, How it was obtained; 
secondly. How it is enjoyed ; thirdly. How it is 
used. Lucre is not filthy itself ; but if obtained by 
unjust means, it becomes filthy lucre ; or if it be 
enjoyed selfishly, lavishly, and carnally, it becomes 
filthy lucre ; or if employed to carry out crafty 
and wicked designs by corrupting men to become 
instruments for evil in the hands of its owner, it 
is filthy lucre. 

It is to men who have so obtained and employed 
wealth that James calls in tones of tremendous 
warning. In the midst of the shouts of their 



258 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



revelry he calls them to weep, in words spoken in 
tones of the old prophets. So Isaiah (ch. 13) 
called to their ancestors, Hear ye, for the day 
of the Lord is at hand ; it shall come as a de- 
struction from the Almighty, therefore shall all 
hands be faint and every man's heart shall melt. 
They shall be amazed, every man at his neighbor; 
their faces shall be as flames." It is a call to 
arouse them from their self-contentment and self- 
sufficiency ; dispositions frequently caused by 
great riches. He prophesies that miseries are 
coming upon them. He seems to hear the foot- 
fall of the approaching days of misery — misery 
that could not be warded off by all the wealth 
which they had gathered around them. Scarcely 
a decade passed before this prophecy was fulfilled. 
The turbulent disposition of the Jews, their inces- 
sant seditions and frequent outbreaks, at last 
brought upon them the destruction of their city, 
when, as Josephus informs us, the Zealots spared 
none but those who were poor and low in for- 
tune, and were so insatiably rapacious that they 
searched all the houses of the rich, killing the 
men and abusing the women. And the same 
writer informs us that these terrors befell not 
only those who were in Judea, but also those who 
were in dispersion." When any day of judg- 
ment falls upon a people such as then fell upon 
the Jews, the whole nation is involved. What 
then can riches do } 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 259 



In the picturesque phrases which follow, James 
alludes to the various kinds of wealth in his day. 
We must remember that this epistle was written 
long before corporate combinations, such as now 
prevail, had entered into the contrivances of men 
either for the accumulation or for the preserva- 
tion of their wealth, such as shares of stock in 
mining companies and railway companies, and 
what are called trusts," monopolies, and otlier 
modes of investment. Even our modern invest- 
ment in works of fine art was a thing unknown. 
If a man acquired wealth beyond his own house 
and garden, what was he to do with it ? There 
were three classes of things in which he ordinarily 
invested it, namely, grain, clothes, and gold or 
silver coin. 

The first might be used in several ways. It 
might be stored for a rise in breadstuffs, some- 
thing like our modern corners in grain " ; or it 
might be transported and sold ; or it might be 
kept stored in vaults for the owner's use if there 
should come at any time a famine or a war. 
With such wealth one might say, like the man in 
the parable (Luke 12), who had stored all his 
goods in the shape of grain : *'Soul, thou hast 
much goods laid up for many years ; take thine 
ease ; eat, drink, and be merry." When the calami- 
ties came, the grain, which had been kept up at a 
high price, thus increasing the suffering of the 
poor, had become rotten in the bins, 



26o The Gospel of Common Sense. 



Another form of accumulation was in the 
shape of costly raiment, and even of plainer gar- 
ments in greater quantities. In our day this 
kind of accumulation is almost unknown, because 
the fashions are so constantly varying. But in 
olden times and even in our own day, the fashions 
do not change in the East. As the prizes taken 
in ancient wars, we frequently hear of fine gar- 
ments as amongst the treasures. It is said that 
when Alexander the Great took Persepolis the 
riches of all Asia were gathered there ; not only 
quantities of silver and gold, but also abundance 
of raiment. When the Roman Lucullus was re- 
quested to lend a hundred garments to the thea- 
tre, he replied that he had five thousand in his 
house, and they were welcome to take as many 
as they would. In regard to that species of 
wealth, James said, '^Your garments have be- 
come moth-eaten ; " and so he said of coin, 
**Your gold and silver are rusted." This must, 
of course, refer to the soil which will gather even 
upon the precious metals when laid aside, al- 
though they could not rust in our modern sense 
of becoming oxidized. But long kept out of cir- 
culation, and thus increasing the embarrassment 
of society, they had become spotted in the secret 
and safe places where they had been concealed. 

The words of JAMES must have brought back 
to his Christian readers the exhortation of his great 
brother: Lay not up for yourselves treasures 



The Gospel of Common Se7tse, 261 



upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, 
and where thieves break through and steal ; but 
lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where 
neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where 
thieves do not break through nor steal " (Matt. 6) 
He announced to them that the rust of their 
money should rise up against them and condemn 
them, and come down upon them and punish 
them ; that is, should eat into them, with an 
agony that should be like the burning of one's 
flesh ; for their avarice, which had led them to 
such great injustice, which had warmed their 
hearts and burned out their neighbors, should be 
in them like the flaming fire. Here, again, we 
have the old prophetic thunder, as when the 
Psalmist said : ^' Thou shalt make them as a fiery 
oven in the time of Thy wrath, and the fire shall 
eat them up" (Ps. 21 19). As when Isaiah said, 
'*The Light of Israel shall be for a fire and the 
Holy One for a flame. It shall burn and eat up; it 
shall eat up from the soul to the flesh " (Isa. 10 : 16). 
As when Jeremiah said, Behold, I will make 
My word in thy mouth, fire, and the people wood, 
and it shall eat them up " (Jer. 5 : 14) As when 
Ezekiel said, " They shall go out from one fire and 
another fire shall devour them" (Ezek. 15: 7). 
''I will bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, 
and the fire shall eat thee up " (Ezek. 28 : 18). 

James was writing to people who were much 
more familiar with this phraseology than we are 



262 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



in our day. To the Jews who lived when James 
wrote, this soon came to be hterally true ; for 
their substance and their flesh were destroyed 
w^hen the city and the temple were burned. 
Josephus tells us that the flames consumed their 
dead bodies and their substance and their ward- 
robes. Whatever was spared from the flames fell 
into the hands of the Romans ; and so, it came 
to pass that the treasures which had been 
heaped up to prnduce for them a long season of 
quiet and comfort were all swept away ; for they 
had planted their seed in a garden that lay over 
the heart of a volcano which was soon to burst. 
Their doom was aggravated by the injustice 
which they had used in the accumulation of their 
hoarded property. They had violated the law of 
justice and, as well, the law of benevolence, and 
had broken the precept of Moses in which it was 
recorded, **The wages of him that is hired shall 
not abide with thee all night until the morning 
(Lev. 19 : 13). As also, Thou shalt not oppress 
a hired servant that is poor and needy at his day, 
thou shalt give him his hire ; neither shall the sun 
go down upon it, lest he cry against thee to the 
Lord, and it be a sin unto thee" (Lev. 24 : 14, 15). 
This hire, which was still in their possession, the 
interest of which they had enjoyed, now cried out 
against them from the secret places where they 
had stored grain, or garments, or gold, as the 
blood of Abel cried unto God from the ground 
against his brother Cain (Gen. 4: 10). 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 263 



Perhaps there is no portion of this denunciation 
which could be brought home to the modern Chris- 
tian community more decisively than this. The 
crying sin against the rich in every large city is the 
sin of keeping back the hire which belongs to the 
laborers ; and this is probably committed oftener 
by Christian women than by Christian men. 
Amongst us the sin consists in postponing, as a 
small matter, a small debt to the poor man : a 
messenger, a porter, a laundress, or some menial. 
Amongst our ladies, the little bill of the dress- 
maker or the milliner is little only to the debtor, 
not to the creditor. The poor working woman 
has an old mother, or a helpless brother, or a 
young child to support. Her rent is to be paid 
exactly at the hour. No grace of time is granted 
to her, as it is to a man whose rent is twenty 
thousand dollars a year. She must pay her rent, 
or have her baby's cradle and her other little fur- 
niture put out on the sidewalk. On Saturday 
night she must pay for the meat and the flour 
which have been bought during the week, or she 
and her loved ones must fast through the Sunday, 
and fast on until her rich sister, who wears the 
work produced by weary fingers and sometimes 
wet with bitter tears, shall think of her little bill, 
and pay it. Oh, my sisters, this is a crying sin of 
this day. In this great city in which I am writ- 
ing, last Sunday, hundreds of ladies swept mag- 
nificently dressed into the House of God, and 



264 Tlie Gospel of Coininon Sense, 



quietly sat in their pews under the preaching, and 
went out to sumptuous dinners, and rested deli- 
cately for their afternoon s siesta on soft couches, 
while their poor laboring sisters were compelled 
to stay from church because some little bill was 
not paid ; and that little bill was not paid on 
Saturday because, when the poor work-woman 
called, the debtor was chatting pleasantly with 
some flattering friend, and sent word to the poor 
woman to come again ; or else, had gone riding 
into the park, and forgot to leave the amount 
which she had promised should be paid on Satur- 
day. If any Christian man or woman shall read 
this passage on Sunday when he owes fifty cents, 
or a dollar, or two, or three, or five dollars, any- 
thing under ten dollars, to any man or woman 
known to be poor, let him close this volume at 
this page and go out, Sunday as it is, and hunt 
up his little creditor, and pay that little bill, lest 
the angel of death come upon him this day, and 
he go to the judgment-seat with this corroding 
sin eating in upon his moral nature. Let him 
make no hypocritical defence that it is Sunday. 
Sunday.'^ Why better than any prayer that you 
can offer in the closet, at the family-altar, or in 
the church, would be this deed of simple justice. 
Your debt of twenty-five thousand dollars down 
on the exchange can stand over until to-morrow, 
but the hire of the laborer which you have kept 
back cries ! And the cry hath entered into the 
ears of the Lord of hosts. 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 265 

Let that tremendous name shake your conscience 
to its very centre. You may be too superb to pay 
attention to the small debt due your neighbor; 
but God is so great that He can pay attention to 
the least of things. We may be so self-absorbed 
as to be able to listen only to some great news, 
some great scheme, some great thought ; but God 
is so great that into His ear enters the sigh, not 
to say the cry, of the poor field hand, the poor 
needle-worker, sent up from barn or from garret 
unto Him. And little and needy as the sufferer 
is, the Lord who hears him, let us remember, is the 

Lord of hosts,'' the Lord that commands all the 
physical forces and all the spiritual dynamics of the 
universe, the Lord who can bring to the rescue of 
the lowliest every power that makes and shapes 
and shakes the universe which He hath created. 

In addition to covetousness and oppression, 
James presents to their conscience the sin of 
voluptuousness. There is nothing in any part of 
Holy Scripture to teach that there is any wrong 
in the rational enjoyment of the legitimate 
pleasures of this pleasant Hfe. On the contrary, 
the Scriptures confirm the teachings of nature, 
namely, that the Heavenly Father is provident of 
His children, making all nature serve them ; not 
bringing them upon the planet until all arrange- 
ments had been made, so that a race of human 
beings, living properly, would exist in a condition 
of perfect physical, intellectual, and spiritual com- 



266 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



fort. His storing of the coal in the cellar of the 
mansion of man, that it might afford heat for his 
body, fire for his kitchen, illumination for his 
nights, and steam for his progress, is ample proof 
of this. The obvious intent of the Creator, as all 
His plans do show, is that His children may be 
happy. His moral law shows the same thing. 
Nothing is put about a child of God to fence him 
in ; but everything to fence destruction out. The 
moral law is not a prison but a fortress. 

And so the Gospel of the Blessed God shows us 
that, even when we had gone out and exposed 
ourselves to the extremest spiritual calamity, 
God so loved the world that He gave His only- 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life. He 
desires that we shall see life, that we shall have 
life and have it more abundantly. His disposition 
toward us is declared in the statement of the 
Apostle, that He giveth us all things richly to 
enjoy." Supposing a certain amount of enjoy- 
ment to be possible to any one man in his lifetime, 
it is plain that the excesses of one day make drafts 
upon another day; it may be, upon all days. If 
he have a thousand days to live and ten thousand 
dollars be put at his command, it is plain that he 
will have the purchasing power of ten dollars for 
every day in his life. But if he spend fifty dollars 
a day in the first hundred days, it is quite plain 
that he would have less than six dollars a day 



The Gospel of Commou Sense. 



267 



during the remaining nine hundred. And if he 
spend a hundred dollars a day for the first hundred 
days, the remaining nine hundred would be spent 
in absolute penury. This is a rigid mathematical 
calculation, which does not do justice to the case, 
for life is composed of so many factors, and each 
man has so many faculties and connections that 
an impairment of a man is a wider injury than the 
removal of anything which can be represented by 
numbers. 

To these destructive excesses great wealth 
tempts any man, no matter what may be his 
moral qualities. The persons whom JAMES ad- 
dressed had been living in this extravagant, 
voluptuous way, which made earth their home, a 
home they desired to live in forever ; which made 
work and duty disagreeable to them ; which had 
brought them to a state of mind that engaged 
all their faculties in discovering modes of enjoy- 
ment, rather than methods of usefulness. And 
so, their lives had come to be beastly, as beasts 
are fed in the stalls and fattened for the day when 
they are to be slaughtered ; and so, the high- 
est characteristic of their whole nature was this, 
that they were simply fit to be killed. We find, 
in our own day, that men of enormous wealth do 
often spend their money in such a fashion that, 
while it fattens their hearts, it brings on the day 
of their doom. 

The luxury of the rich Jews, in the time of J AMES, 



268 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 



was like that of their forefathers, as described 
by the prophet Amos (6 : 4), " That lie upon beds 
of ivory y and stretch themselves upon their couches ^ 
and eat the lamb out of the flock, and the calves 
out of the midst of the stall ; that chant to the 
sound of the viol^ and invent to themselves instru^ 
ments of music like David ; that drink wine in 
bowls, and anoint themselv s with chief ointments ; 
but they are not grieved for the affliction of 
Joseph I " 

The result in the days of Amos, as that in the 
days of James, will always be the result of such a 
course of conduct. Whenever Church people in- 
dulge the pleasures of the flesh to such a degree 
that they become careless as to the condition of 
the Church, whenever it does not make them 
mourn that religion is languishing and sin is pre- 
vailing, then their pleasures become their snare, 
and their bodily enjoyment will end in the spirit- 
ual death. 

The fourth sin with which James charges the 
rich, the worldly, and the wanton Jews of his day, 
is the oppression of the righteous, even to the 
taking of their lives. The phrase, *'the just,'* 
which he uses in verse 6, has received many in- 
terpretations. One takes it to mean that whole 
body of people who had fallen under the hatred 
of the Jews, from whom they had separated them- 
selves ; the latter had the power of money to 
follow up, to harass, and to destroy those whom 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 



they hated for ecclesiastical reasons. Their gen- 
eral disposition was hatred to the good ; their 
general course of conduct, the destruction of the 
good. But there can be no objection, it would 
seem, to translating it the Just One," and ap- 
plying the phrase to our Lord Jesus Christ, 
James knew that Stephen had charged the 
Council with murdering the Just One" (Acts 7 : 
62), that "the Just One" was the title given to 
our Lord (Acts 3 : 14, and 22 : 14), and that 
their crime in murdering Jesus was presented as 
all the more atrocious because He had rightfully 
claimed to be their Messiah. He seems to be 
echoing again the words of Jesus, who told the 
Jews of His generation, that upon them was to 
come all the righteous blood shed from the days 
of Abel to the days of Zacharias. 

If the application of the verse be made either 
to the good in general, or to the Lord Jesus 
Christ in particular, there is something very 
striking in the omission of the conjunction. 

Ye have condemned, ye have killed, the Just," 
expresses the rapidity of the action and result of 
their maliciousness. They seemed to be so 
afraid that after condemning a good man He 
should escape slaughter, that they hurried up His 
death, although, as a lamb before the shearers is 
dumb. He opened not His mouth. There is a 
touch of sweetness in the title which JAMES 
gives to his crucified Brother — ''The Just One," 



2/0 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



for he himself, among his people, had gone by the 
name of James the Just." But his slain Broth- 
er had become his risen Lord, and by His resur- 
rection and ascension had so established the jus- 
tice of His claims to the Messiahship, that ever 
hereafter James would transfer the title to Jesus, 
and have Jesus known as the Just One," 
amongst all the just upon the face of the earth, in 
all the ages of the history of mankind. 



XII. 



The Final Theme. 

CHAPTER v., 7-20. 
THE FINAL THEME : PATIENCE. 

JAMES now approaches the final theme of his 
epistle in an address to his Christian breth- 
ren. The connection seems to be that, since 
such great miseries are to come upon their per- 
secutors, they may well be exhorted to endur- 
ance and patience. He turns from his address to 
the un-Christian Jews to speak to his own breth- 
ren, to those who were bound to him not only by 
the tie of nationality but by their being members 
of the family of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Be patient, therefore, brethren^ until the coming 
of the Lord, Behold, the tiller of the ground 
waiteth for the valued fruit of the ground, be ing 
patient over it, until he receives the rain, the early 
and the latter. Be ye also patient ; strengthen 
your hearts ; for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 
Do not complain one against another, brethren, that 
ye be not condemned. Behold, the Judge standeth 
before the doors'' 

The word which we translate patient has a 
many-sided meaning. It means a readiness to 
suffer long. It means the resistance of our natu- 



2/2 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



ral impatience for a long season. It means a 
persistent endurance of painful experience. It 
means courage, forbearance, magnanimity, the 
knowing how to suffer and be strong." It does 
not mean unfeelingness, nor stoicism. It means 
quiet endurance for a sufficient reason. 

THE COMING OF THE LORD. 

The reason assigned is that the Lord is coming. 
He is coming to be present upon earth. This was 
a doctrine held in all apostolic times, and shines 
through all the New Testament Scripture, as in 
prophecy it shone through all the Old Testament. 
As the predictions of the Old Testament were 
fulfilled when the Lord Jesus Christ made His 
appearance in the flesh at the incarnation, so will 
all predictions of the New Testament be fulfilled 
when the Lord shall come again. 

The certain thing is that He will come. The 
uncertain thing is when He will come, and these 
two combine to keep our faith and patience up to 
their highest point. If the Lord delay His coming 
year after year and century after century our faith 
would utterly fail us, unless we had the certainty 
that He would come. Again, if we undertake to 
fix the date by any sort of application of mathe- 
matics to prophecy, and there be any fault in our 
figuring, there will also come a failure of our faith. 
All we can do is to stand by the assertion of the 
Sacred Scriptures, He is coming,*' looking for- 
ward in the sure faith and cheering hope that 
titer e is to be ana they epiphany of Jesus, 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 273 

Our author may have applied the phrase to the 
coming of the Lord to destroy the city of 
Jerusalem and sweep away the old Mosaic insti- 
tutions ; as we now know that ''coming of the 
Lord did bring upon the wicked, rich Jews those 
miseries which J AMES told them were coming upon 
them. But to the faithful, in all ages, there have 
been events which may be very properly called, 
^* comings of the Lord." Surely, when a Christian 
man closes his career at death there is a coming 
of the Lord. He hath promised that He will 
come again and take us unto Himself, that where 
He is, there we may be also (John 14). 

THE EXAMPLE OF THE FARMER. 

Then James encourages his brethren to patience 
by the example of the husbandman. The tiller 
of the soil plows his field, casts therein his precious 
seed-corn, and leaves it there, and waits till it shall 
come to fruition. Waits for the rain, for the early 
rain and the latter rain He waited for the 
Autumn rain before he sowed ; he waits for the 
Spring rain before he gathers. He knows the 
preciousness of the fruit that shall come. He 
depends upon it for his livelihood, and for seed 
for the next yearns sowing. He knows that he 
cannot hasten the ripening of his crop by affecting 
in any degree the sunshine or the rain ; but he 
also knows that, according to the laws of nature, 
seed placed in the earth and rained upon and 
sunned, will come to growing crops. So surely 



2/4 The Gospel of Common Sense, 

does a faithful man know that the good seed 
which he is sowing in faith may He in the ground 
for many, many days ; but the law in the spiritual 
world just as fimly holds as in the natural; and 
the harvest will come. 

TIME A FACTOR. 
Wherefore jAMES exhorts his brethren to 
strengthen their hearts, considering that their 
sufferings cannot be long, and the Lord , will not 
stay away one single hour beyond the time when 
the rescue of His servants demands His presence. 
One thing quite necessary for a high moral 
character is to take the factor of time into account. 
It does so much every way. It loosens and 
tightens, it lifts up and casts down, it straightens 
and rectifies, or, at least, it seems to do so, because 
the operations of the active physical and spiritual 
forces of the universe require time as certainly 
as they require space. When Christian people are 
under the influence of thoughts like these, while 
they are suffering they may abstain from sighing 
and from groaning, from murmuring, complaining, 
fault-finding, grudging, all which things are con- 
tained in the injunction, Do not complain one 
against another, brethren." 

THE SIN OF GRUMBLING. 
Do Christian people quite sufficiently consider 
the sin of grumbling, the sin of being discontented 
with the allotment of Providence, as to the time 
and place of their birth ; as to the family in which 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 275 



they were born ; as to their environment, as well 
as their heredity ? What a strange sight a grum- 
bling Christian is ! He is a man who believes 
that God hath forgiven his sins, that Christ hath 
borne them all away, that his Lord has gone to 
prepare a place for him, that in a short time he 
will be where neither pain nor persecution can 
reach him, where the load of life will be laid 
down, where the wicked shall cease from troub- 
Hng and the weary shall be forever at rest. And 
yet he allows small and transient things to keep 
him awake in the night, to worry him, and make 
him peevish and fretful and cross through the 
day. He makes his own burdens more distress- 
ing by fretting under them, and thus increases 
the burdens which his friends have to bear. How 
many Christians fail to put their grumblings into 
the category of their sins. But James's admo- 
nition, that we should not grumble lest we be 
damned, ought to arouse us to the duty of being 
patient, and to the fact that all really true Chris- 
tian faith increases a man's manliness. 

He both warns and encourages by the fact that 
the Judge is standing before the very doors. He 
hears everything that is said, and He knows, 
while He stands at the door, that He has a dear 
friend within, a friend who is suffering, ah, what 
bodily, what mental pains, and yet, in memory of 
the sufferings of his Lord, with faith in the knowl- 
edge and sympathy of his Lord, is sitting in 



2/6 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

silence and bearing it all, even as his Lord in 
His agony opened not His mouth." 

THE EXAMPLE OF THE PROPHETS. 

He draws another incentive to patience and 
dissuasive from grumbling from the example of 
the good men who have lived in other ages. 

" As an exa7nple of suffering evil and of patience^ 
my brethren, take the prophets who have spoken 
in the name of the Lord. Behold, we call them 
blessed who endured. You have heard of the en- 
durance of Job and have seen the end of the Lord ; 
for very compassionate is the Lord and merciful ^ 

Encouragement may be found for those in suf- 
fering by reviewing the lives of the greatest and 
the best men that ever lived. They have never 
been found amongst those who were wicked and 
wanton, pleasure - seekers and at ease. The 
greatest line of men known to those to whom the 
epistle was addressed were the prophets, whose 
careers are set forth in the Old Testament Scrip- 
ture. Were any of them easy-going men ? Did 
their eyes stand out with fatness ? Did they 
have every pleasure the flesh desired ? Were 
their days spent with wine and their nights with 
women ? Were they clothed in purple and fine 
linen t Did their mountains stand strong and 
their homes abide ? No, every one of them was 
a man harassed, persecuted, chased. They were 
strangers and pilgrims in the earth. They for- 
sook the homes of their childhood and the graves 



The Gospel of CoDtmon Sense. 277 



of their fathers, and went into strange countries. 
They left the fields that were rich and went to 
lands where they must toil. They were tortured, 
they had trials of mockings and scourgings ; they 
had bonds and imprisonments ; they were stoned 
and torn asunder ; they went about in sheep- 
skins and goat-skins, wandering in deserts and 
mountains, and caves, and the holes of the earth. 
They were destitute and afflicted. They were 
stoned and sawn asunder, and slain with the 
sword. Who are we, that we should expect to 
obtain the crowns which they wear, if we be un- 
willing to fight the battles which they fought } 
And 7tow we call them blessed." If they had 
failed, if they had cast the burden down, if they 
had refused the fight, if they had fled from the 
cross, no one would consider them "blessed." 
They would have failed to gain immortal fame. 
AN ILLUSTRIOUS GENTILE SUFFERER. 
He recalled to them the example of an illus- 
trious Gentile sufferer. Job was not always pa- 
tient in the sense of being speechless. Some- 
times his agonies were so great and so greatly 
increased by the torturing company of his friends, 
that they wrung from him cries that have sound- 
ed through all history down to our days. And 
yet he suffered and suffered, concluding every 
wail of his spirit with words which expressed the 
deepest sentiment of his soul: "Though He 
slay me, yet will I trust in Him." In the days 



2/8 



The Gospel of Co77imon Sense. 



of James, the Jewish Christians, it is said, gave 
special honor to the name of Job. Saint as he 
was, he suffered. Suffering, therefore, is not in- 
compatible with sainthood. 

There seems to be one other sentiment in 
these words, namely, that no suffering can be so 
long continued that it will not come to an end ; 
that no waves can break over a man so as to 
drown him utterly out of the sight of God ; and 
that the greater and longer the suffering which 
any man endures, the more complete and illus- 
trious is the demonstration which the conclusion 
thereof affords the world when the Lord brings 
it to an end, and crowns it with the great glory. 
Such men become monumental, and guide the 
march of humanity down the centuries. 

AGAINST OATHS. 

As our author is drawing to the close of his 
epistle he gives his brethren several directions, 
the observance of which would lead to an increase 
of their patience. The first of these is that striking 
precept in the I2th verse : 

"'But before ally brethren 7nine, do not swear ^ 
neither by heaven nor by earthy nor by any other 
object of oath ; but be your yes, yes, and your nOy 
no ; that you fall not under condemnation^ 

No reader can fail to hear in these words an- 
other echo of the words of Jesus as they are re- 
corded in Matt. 5 : 34-37. While this injunction 
covers the whole ground of profanity, it may be 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 279 



supposed to have been intended for James's earlier 
readers, to warn them against certain evils into 
which their trials for the sake of the faith were 
liable to plunge them, and which may recur from 
age to age to all who are striving to serve the Lord 
Jesus in simplicity and godly sincerity. 

VOWS IN TROUBLE, 
(i) It has not been an uncommon thing for men 
to take vows in trouble, as if they would do them 
any good. They have promised if certain ends 
could be attained to pursue certain courses of life ; 
and sometimes, to give a supposed greater effi- 
cacy, they have bound themselves with oaths. 
The Hebrew-Christians in the first century were 
peculiarly exposed to this. The evil of it lay in 
transferring their confidence from the grace and 
power of God to the vows which they were making, 
and thus begetting in them a strong tendency 
to confidence in rnagic. With us the evil may 
come up just as with them. At times when men 
have been caught in exceedingly tight places by 
reason of their imprudence or their sins, in times 
when men have fallen into great bodily pain, they 
have thoughtlessly sworn that if God would deliver 
them out of the pressing difficulties they would 
change their whole course of life. The evil of this 
lies in the supposition, that if they be not delivered 
as they desire they are not bound to dedicate 
themselves to God's service. It is on that sup- 
position these men have been living before their 
difficulties came. If they be extricated, it is so 



28o The Gospel of Common Sense. 



easy to forget the vow and return to the old modes 
of life. If a man vow, he should pay his vow unto 
the Lord. It is, however, better never to make a 
vow, but to walk the path of duty dutifully. It is 
as if James has said, Brethren, do not vow that if 
this storm could be lifted from your sky you will 
be more faithful Christians ; you are bound to be 
faithful as it is, and to trust God's goodness and 
mercy to shorten or lengthen your sufferings as 
may be best.'* 

There may be something in this injunction 
applicable to our modern temperance pledges. 
A man addicted to strong drink, and feeling the 
degradation of the slavery into which he has gone, 
signs a vow that he will never drink intoxicants. 
How worthless such pledges are is well known 
both to those who make and those who adminis- 
ter them. The will-power necessary to keep 
such a pledge is sufficient to enable a man to 
break the habit without such a pledge. If he 
have not that power, he will certainly violate his 
pledge, and thus hurt himself by overloading with 
falsehood and a sense of failure, a spirit already 
weakened by sinful indulgences. Better not 

swear off," but break off. Instead of swearing 
that you will never drink again, pray for grace to 
keep you from ever drinking again, and continue 
to pray and abstain until the habit be broken. 
DISOWNING THE CHRISTIAN PROFESSION. 

(2) It may have been a warning to them, not 
to swear when they were brought before Roman 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 



281 



magistrates, or were in the company of pagan 
persecutors, in order to show by such words that 
they were not Christians. The whole world from 
the beginning, had supposed that no follower of 
so holy a person as Jesus would indulge in pro- 
fane language. This was so early and so well 
known that, when, on the last night of Christ's 
suffering, Peter was charged with being one of 
His followers, he broke into profane expressions, 
and he knew that that would be an argument to 
convince them that he was not a Christian. And 
it did. 

CONJURATION. 

(3) The injunction might have applied to the 
temptation there was among them to conspire 
together in sworn bands against their persecu- 
tors ; as was frequently the case in their own 
age and has been ever since. In our English 
tongue conjuration " once meant banding to- 
gether with oaths and not, as now, attempts at 
magical processes. James saw the futility of all 
seditious movements. He saw that it plunged 
his brethren only into deeper and deeper trou- 
bles ; wherefore, he besought them not to seek 
such modes of relief, not to bind themselves to 
others, or others to themselves, in order to effect 
deliverance, but to put all in the hand of God. 

PROFANITY. 

(4) But whether any or all of these considera- 
tions were in the mind of our author, it is quite 



282 The Gospel of Cominojt Sense. 



certain that he pronounced a very emphatic de- 
nunciation against profanity. His opening phrase 
shows the depth of his convictions. Why, be- 
fore all things, must they guard against profanity, 
if profanity itself be not an exceedingly heinous 
ofifence ? It is such, lightly as it is esteemed, 
even in what is called good society." In Chris- 
tian countries at this day, it is a dire and dread- 
ful vice. Men take the name of the Most High 
in vain, using it lightly, perhaps, at first, under 
the conviction that it gives strength to their 
rhetoric, and thus glide into a vice which saps 
the moral constitution. The sin of common pro- 
fanity, or swearing, is a sin against God and 
against one's self. It is a sin against God, because 
it deprives Him of the honor due His name, and 
is in direct disobedience to His commandment, 
which sets forth His opinion of such language in 
the most explicit form: ''Thou shalt not take 
the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the 
Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His 
name in vain.'' 

The sin is not mitigated by modifications of 
phraseology. Even in what is called good society 
in England it is not uncommon to hear the phrase, 

by Jove," a phrase sometimes employed by 
young Americans who are fond of aping Angli- 
can manners, interlarding the speech of men, 
young and old, introduced carelessly without re- 
gard to rhetoric or to sense. One may as well 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 



283 



swear by God's wounds " as by Zounds," and 
Gosh," and Golly," and ''Jeminy" are rustic 
synonymes for the names of our Creator and 
Saviour. 

ITS HURTFULNESS. 
We need not push our reasoning any further in 
this direction ; it is enough that God condemns it. 
If I know what is offensive to my dearest friend, 
I avoid it ; if I know what is disgusting to 
my most powerful friend, I guard my habits of 
speech in his presence ; if I am accustomed to 
the forbidden words, it is enough for me to know 
that God hates the profanation of His name, to 
make me avoid using it carelessly on frivolous 
occasions. In the next place, it is hurtful to any 
man to become an habitual swearer. It is an ef- 
fectual bar to his ever being great. It is utterly 
impossible, whatever other gifts and opportunities 
be afforded, that a man shall ever reach the ut- 
most possible greatness of humanity, who himself 
fails to have reverence for that which is great. 
Reverence is the spring of all aspiration ; rever- 
ence is the foundation for all lofty upbuilding of 
character. 

Not only is irreverence to be avoided, but rever- 
ence is to be cultivated, that reverence which has 
a profound respect for all that is lofty in thought, 
in emotion, in existence. Now, it is manifestly 
impossible for any man to cultivate reverence for 
anything, who has no reverence for the highest 



284 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



thing. The thought of God, as Daniel Webster 
said, is the greatest thought which has entered 
into the mind of man. When in his common con- 
versation, on trivial occasions, a man plucks down 
that loftiest thought and spits upon it, he de- 
prives himself of any possibility of rising to lofty 
intellectual and moral heights. This should be 
pressed upon the attention of every man, especially 
upon the young, that they may not fall into this 
degrading habit. 

ITS UTTER USELESSNESS. 

The injunction of James is enforced when we 
consider the utter uselessness of a vice which is 
disgusting to God and degrading to man. It is 
a gratuitous sin. Murder, adultery, and robbery 
may be committed under the stimulus of a pas- 
sionate excitement ; but when a man uses profane 
language, he goes out of his way to pay an un- 
solicited compliment to the devil. Stealing may 
enrich a man, murder may gratify his thirst of 
vengeance, but profanity brings him nothing. No 
one respects him more for swearing. Although 
a solemn judicial oath increases confidence in 
the word of a man» who proceeds to give testi- 
mony thereafter, profane swearing diminishes re- 
spect for his truthfulness. A man who will thus 
swear will lie. If he do not observe the most 
solemn of God's commandments, he is not liable 
to observe any other. If he takes the name of 
the Lord in vain, what is to prevent his bear- 



Tlie Gospel of Common Sense, 



285 



ing false witness ? If he do not regard what is 
due to God, will he respect what is due to 
man ? 

When, in conversation, a man states some- 
thing as a fact, and then says, T swear it is so," 
even when he does not use the name of God, the 
hearer naturally has his faith in the statement 
weakened. If a speaker has no confidence in his 
own plain statement, how should he expect others 
to have ? The added phrase, I swear it is so," 
is indicative of the wavering of his faith in him- 
self. When a man is so notoriously careful of his 
speech that his affirmation may be always under- 
stood to be affirmation and his denial to be de- 
nial, those who are acquainted with him have a 
constantly increasing confidence in his asser- 
tions. 

Surely of all people Christians should be the 
most reverent, because God has revealed Himself 
to them, not only in all the most solemn aspects 
of His character, as He has to other peoples, but 
also in all the most tender characteristics of His 
nature. The God who is in Christ reconciling 
the world unto Himself ought to be a God before 
whom all the world should stand in worshipful 
homage. There is a remarkable passage in Ho- 
sea (4: 2): "By swearing, and lying, and killing, 
and stealing, and committing adultery, they break 
out, and blood toucheth blood," or, as it might 
be translated, bloods touch bloods." This shows 



286 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 



how the whole line of crimes follows when rev- 
erence for God is removed. 

JUDICIAL OATHS. 

The principle which lies at the root of this, 
plainly points to the importance of guarding 
against the multiplication of even judicial oaths. 
Men brought to give testimony upon frivolous 
questions should not be put to the test of the 
oath. Our courts of law would soon begin to find 
that if testimony were taken upon a simple 
affirmation of the witness there would be as 
good an opportunity of reaching the truth as 
now ; and that when the temptation to prevari- 
cate or lie under oath came to a man, it could be 
more easily resisted if he had not been accus- 
tomed to swear over and over again in matters 
of small importance. 

PRAYER CURE. 

After warning his brethren against profanity 
and teaching them to cultivate a hallowed spirit 
in general, jAMES turns to some directions to them 
when they are personally in trouble or physically 
sick. 

Is any one among you suffering evil? Let him 
pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing. Is any 
sick ? Let him call for the Elders of the congrega- 
tion ; and let them pray over him^ having anointed 
him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the 
prayer of faith shall help the sick and th Lord 
shall raise him up ; and although he have com- 
mitted sins it shall be forgiven him,'' 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 287 



To Christians, as to other men, there come 
varieties of moods and conditions. Sometimes 
they are afflicted, sometimes they are prospering, 
and so, sometimes they are sad, and sometimes 
they are glad. What shall a Christian do when 
he is suffering evil or enduring any kind of afflic- 
tion ? Let him not grumble nor be peevish ; let 
him not break forth into profanity ; let him 
pray. Communion with God, fellowship with the 
Heavenly Father ; this is the best comfort in 
trouble. On the other hand, are his affairs such 
as make him cheerful } Let him not go into a riot, 
nor the companionship of wassailers. Let him 
break forth into song, and let those songs not be 
gay and giddy ditties, but psalms of praise and 
thanksgiving and grateful love. Christian people 
should have their memories stored with the very 
best parts of the Psalms of David, and other 
hymns of prayer and praise, as the Apostle Paul 
wrote to the Colossians (3 : 16), Let the word of 
Christ dwell in you richly ; in all wisdom teach- 
ing and admonishing yourselves, with psalms and 
hymns and spiritual songs singing ; with grace in 
your hearts unto God." There is no restriction 
here to any particular psalms, although those of 
David were generally known to the persons to 
whom James wrote, and were in Hebrew distin- 
guished as Shurim, Tehillim, and Mizmorim. 
There were undoubtedly other psalms and hymns 
and spiritual songs known to him, which have not 



288 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



come down to our day. The teaching of the 
Apostle is, that instead of any profane, worldly, 
and frivolous comforts in affliction and in joy, 
Christians should find sacred modes of expressing 
their sentiments and comforting their hearts. 

THE EARLY CHURCH ORDER. 

We now come to a direction of the Apostle 
which points back to certain things in the origin 
of the Christian Church, which demand careful 
consideration. The ideas ordinarily attached to 
the word Church " in modern times do not seem 
to have entered into the minds of the Apostles or 
of the early Christians. It grew up from small 
beginnings, in the early centuries, until it consoli- 
dated itself into the hard forms in which it stands 
in modern times. There seems to have been no 
such thing as an incorporated body to which who- 
soever belonged was a saved man, and failure of 
membership in which involved spiritual destruction. 
Those who loved Jesus for His personality, who 
received Him as the Messiah of God, adored Him 
as the spiritual ruler of the universe, and trusted 
Him as the Savior of their souls, naturally came 
together. There was one doctrine, namely, the 
resurrection of Jesus from the dead. They did 
not speak of doctrines," as if there were more 
than one. Those who believed that Christ had 
raised Himself by the power of God from the dead, 
therewith drew into their creed every other thing 
which was necessary to be believed for the re- 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 289 



generation of their lives and the guidance of their 
moral conduct. 

As soon as there was any considerable number 
of such people, there would naturally be persons 
who would discharge representative duties, persons 
to whom some power would be delegated by the 
congregation for executive purposes. They were 
the Presbyters. Of these there would naturally be 
a president, one who should have the oversight of 
the whole congregation. An overseer, episcopos 
in the Greek tongue, was one who episcopated, 
that is, kept oversight, and hence, the president of 
the Presbyters was the Bishop of the congregation. 
A Bishop does not seem to have extended his 
oversight beyond his own congregation, so that 
in New Testament language a Bishop is what we 
call a Pastor. The Presbyters might rotate in the 
office, or they might all of them fall back into the 
general congregation, and other brethren take their 
places, the only office for hfe being that of the 
Apostle, which expired when the last man who 
had seen the risen Jesus and been by Him called 
to the Apostleship, departed from this world. This 
is the short and simple statement of what we know 
of the early Christian Society. 

CHARISMATA. 

In the early Church " there were certain 
spiritual gifts, sometimes called charismata; a 
word which sheds very little light upon the thing 
itself. After all that has been written on this 



290 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



subject, Neander is most probably nearly right 
when he gives the definition of the charisma as 
a capacity in which the power and activity of the 
indwelling Spirit are revealed. Whether this 
capacity had been immediately imparted by the 
Holy Spirit, or was merely a natural capacity 
sanctified and enlarged by the principle of the new 
life, the Holy Spirit so operated upon men, for the 
edification of Christian people, as to furnish them 
with a new power to use their natural endowments 
for the upbuilding of the ^^congregation.'* 

There is an enumeration of these gifts in First 
Corinthians 12 ; in Ephesians 4, and in Romans 
12. In the first passage, it is said of Christ, that 
H ''gave some to be Apostles, and some proph- 
ets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and 
teachers." In First Corinthians 12, in addition 
to those just mentioned, it is said that to each 
one '^is given'* the manifestation of the Spirit 
to profit withal." Then follows a list including 
''preaching'' and "teaching" and to those are 
added *' to another faith in the same Spirit, and 
to another the gift of healing in the one Spirit, 
and to another working of miracles, and to an- 
other discerning of spirits, and to another divers 
kinds of tongues, and to another the interpreta- 
tion o^ tongues." 

In the close of the chapter, Paul gives an- 
other catalogue : " God hath set some in the 
congregation (Church); first, Apostles ; secondly, 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 291 



prophets ; thirdly, teachers ; then miracles ; then 
gifts of healings, helps, governments, divers kinds 
of tongues." Perhaps the Presbyters in that early 
day enjoyed all these extraordinary gifts in their 
body, some having one and some another ; we do 
not know whether any one person exhibited all 
the gifts. And perhaps they were selected from 
the congregation of believers because they had 
these spiritual gifts. Whether that be so or not, 
it is plain that the chief gift was to be an Apos- 
tle," laying the foundation of the faith where it 
never had been built before. Next in rank and 
importance was preaching," the power to set 
forth the salvation of God in such a way as to 
persuade men to come into its enjoyment. Next 
the building up of Christians upon their most holy 
faith by teaching the things of the Spirit to the 
children of God. After that, not numbered nor 
ranked, follow those other things. 

DIRECTIONS TO THE SICK. 
James comes now to give a direction to those 
who are sick, and it may be well to impress the 
very first thing which he says upon the attention 
of all Christians who fall into sickness, and to 
present it in the light not simply of a privilege 
but of a moral duty. The first thing the sick man 
was to do was to ''send for the Elders" of the 
congregation to which he belonged, not of any 
other congregation. Amongst them would be 
found some who had the gift of healing. Any 



292 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



one such man would know, upon coming into the 
presence of the sick man, whether or not he ought 
to pray for his recovery. This the Apostle calls 
the gift of faith." The Holy Spirit would so im- 
press the Elder that he would know that it was 
God's will that this invalid should be restored ; 
and he might then pray for him. In that case 
the positive promise was that the man should be 
restored. In such case the man should be 
miraculously healed. There is no injunction as 
to anointing with oil. It is assumed that they 
would do this, because it was customary in that 
time that there should be such anointings. They 
were frequent in the old dispensation, and passed 
over into the new. 

The twelve earliest preachers of the Gospel 
were accustomed to anoint, as we learn from 
Mark (6: 13). As a sanitary agent, pure, rich 
oil, used as an unguent, is healthy, and has been 
employed by all nations in all times for hygienic 
purposes. It has been stated in our day, that 
one of the best cures for scarlet fever is, to take 
the skin from a freshly boiled ham, with the fat 
on it, and with it rub the whole person of the 
invalid. In the case stated by James, it does 
not appear whether or not the oil was relied 
upon at all as a remedial agent. 

The injunction here is, that after the Elders 
had anointed the sick man, which any friend in 
that country would have done, then they should 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 293 



pray with him, and the promise was, that the 
prayer of faith should help, and heal, and save 
that sick person ; that the Lord should raise 
him up." This was a miraculous cure. 

SICKNESS AND SIN. 

There is one other thing to be noticed in this. 
The root of all sickness, primarily, is sin. The 
general sinfulness of our nature crops out in our 
infirmities. Particular sicknesses also are the 
fruits of particular sins. It was promised, in case 
the man had sinned, for whom the Elders were 
under the direction of God to pray, that the sin 
should at the same time be pardoned, and that 
God's healing work would be done thoroughly in 
soul and body, as when Jesus said to the m.an 
who was healed, *'Go in peace, and sin no more." 
This gift of miraculous insight and healing, like 
all other things necessary for laying the founda- 
tions of the faith in the beginning, has now passed 
away. Indeed these gifts were not continued 
amongst Christians very long after the time in 
which James wrote. He himself had been called 
to the Presbyterate and chosen to the Pastorate, 
although apparently never assigned to the work 
of the Apostolate. 

But although the particular form set forth by 
James be not continued among Christians to this 
day, there is nothing in Holy Scripture or Chris- 
tian history to forbid the supposition, that from 
time to time there have occurred certain indica- 



294 The Gospel of Common Sense. 

tions that God so bestowed the gifts" on cer- 
tain individuals, under certain circumstances, as 
to keep alive amongst His people a knowledge of 
His great power and the desire to cultivate their 
faith in God. 

From time to time there have been occur- 
rences which seemed to show this very plainly. 
So far as they have come to the personal knowl- 
edge of the writer of these pages, or have been so 
narrated to him as to appear to be entirely cred- 
ible, these three things seem to have always con- 
curred when the Presbyter has been called: First, 
the impression has been powerfully made that 
prayer should be offered for the entire recovery 
of the patient. Secondly, the patient has con- 
curred in this impression and united in the prayer 
for his own recovery. Thirdly, the person so re- 
covered was duly and truly penitent of all his sins 
and seeking forgiveness for them as a thing much 
more important than his restoration to physical 
health. 

LUTHER'S PRAYER FOR MYCONIUS. 
There is nothing in reason, nothing in common 
sense, nothing in the word of God to set aside 
the belief, that now, from time to time, God will, 
in answer to prayer, raise up a man from sick- 
ness unto perfect health. It is told that when 
Myconius lay apparently dying, he wrote a letter 
to his friend Luther, who, after reading the let- 
ter, irnmediately fell on his knees and began to 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 295 



pray. O Lord, my God! no, Thou must not 
take yet our brother, Myconius, to Thyself; Thy 
cause will not prosper without him. Amen ! " 
And after praying thus, he rose up, and wrote to 
his sick brother, These is no cause for fear, dear 
Myconius ; the Lord will not let me hear that 
thou art dead. You shall not and must not die. 
Amen !" There words made a powerful impres- 
sion on the heart of the dying Myconius, and 
aroused him in such a manner that the ^dcer in his 
lungs discharged itself^ and he recovered. I 
wrote to you that it would be so," answered 
Luther to the letter which announced the re- 
covery of his friend. 

But there is nothing in reason, or common 
sense, or Holy Scripture, to justify the setting up 
of faith-shops and the peddling out of faith-cures 
and the neglect of known remedial agents. There 
is nothing to justify the belief that, when any 
body anoints any body else who is sick and asks 
for his recovery, that recovery would be guaran- 
teed. If that were so, death would soon be ban- 
ished from the planet. Even if every time a holy 
man prayed for another holy man that was sick, 
for his recovery and the continuance of his benef- 
icent presence amongst his followers, that prayer 
were obliged to be granted, a physical immortal- 
ity would have been given to Moses and Elijah, 
to David and Isaiah, amongst the Israelites, and 
to the long line of holy workers in the Christian 



"1(^6 The Gospel of Co77tmon Sense. 

era. If that were so, John Wesley and George 
Whitfield, Martin Luther and John Calvin, would 
be alive to-day, and your father and mother, and 
mine, and multitudes of the godly whom the 
world has not willingly let die." 

GIVING UP THE GHOST. 

We must not leave this thing without calling to 
our minds the general law of the effect of spirit 
upon matter. It is very certain that a man may 
depress his physical constitution by bad habits of 
the mind, or he may quicken it by the healthful 
employment of his mental faculties and the wise 
direction of the actions of his will. Many a man 
has died when he might have lived if he had posi- 
tively refused to give up the ghost." Each 
man's moral duty is to hold oa to the ghost." 
No man has a right to die in any sense which 
involves his own volition. In that single sen- 
tence is contained the truth which makes the im- 
morality of suicide. By the force of his will a 
man must drive all his energies to the defence of 
the weak spot in his bodily constitution, and re- 
pair the waste places by mind-operation. There 
is that which physiologists have called, Vis 
medicatrix naturcE,'' some physical force which 
of itself heals wounds without external applica- 
tion. There is also a Vis medicatrix mentis^^ 
a force of the mind, which goes toward repairing 
the wastes of the intellect. These two forces 
may operate antagonistically or in conjunction. 



The Gospel of Cominon Sense, 297 



So far as there is a will power in him, each man is 
bound to help in the invigoration of those two 
forces. 

EXTREME UNCTION. 
Whether there be any physical or spiritual help 
in the anointing of a man who is dying, uniting 
that anointing with prayer, as in the case of ex- 
treme unction '* among our Roman Catholic breth- 
ren, we may have to say only this, that this pas- 
sage of Scripture has nothing whatever to do with 
it, because in this case the man was anointed 
and prayed over with the certain expectation 
that he was to live ; whereas, the official of the 
Roman Catholic Church would, it is presumed, 
never administer extreme unction except in a 
case where it was believed that a man was about 
to die. It is then administered as a preparation 
for his death ; whereas, in the case supposed by our 
author, it is administered as a preparation for 
the patient's living. 

DUTY OF THE SICK PARISHIONER. 
Before parting with this subject entirely, let 
attention be called to the fact that James directs 
the sick man to send {or the official of his own con- 
gregation to give him pastoral care. To us in mod- 
ern times, this lays down a principle which should 
be duly considered by parishioners and their pas- 
tors. It is the duty of the parishioner when taken 
sick to send for his pastor. It is certainly a shame 
to a Christian man to send for his physician and not 



2q8 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



send for his pastor. The pastor and the phy- 
sician must each determine when and how often 
the visit is to be repeated. It is a very great shame 
to a parishioner if he complain that his pastor has 
not visited him in his sickness when he has not 
sent for that pastor. It is a shame that the in- 
valid depends upon the pastor's missing him from 
the congregation and hunting him up or upon the 
pastor's learning of his sickness from some word 
passing around the church. It is a shame if the 
sick parishioner send for the pastor of some other 
congregation. The wrong of this lies in the fact, 
that it burdens a pastor upon whom he has no 
claim, and hurts a pastor who has claims upon 
him. No one should remain in a congregation in 
Avhose pastor he has not such confidence, and for 
whom he has not such love as would lead him to 
desire to see that pastor so soon as he would de- 
sire to see his physician. 

It is a question whether a pastor ought to go to 
see a parishioner whom he incidentally learns to 
be sick. If that parishioner has not enough con- 
fidence in him and love for him to wish to see 
him in sickness, why should the pastor go } Can 
he do such a patient any good ? 

Pastors are engaged in the cure of souls as 
physicians are engaged in the cure of bodies. 
When a man is sick he needs both ; he wants the 
mental energy and the physical energy equally 
stimulated, helped, and guided. Might it not be 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 299 

wholesome if pastors would everywhere announce 
to their congregations that when they hear of the 
sickness of their parishioners they may be most 
careful to keep away until sent for, although where 
there is no knowledge of sickness they might 
incidentally make a call or a visit ? It might seem 
severe when first inaugurated ; but is not this the 
common-sense principle, the plain duty arising out 
of the relationship ? 

VISITING THE SICK. 

Visiting the sick is a serious business, greatly 
overdone, to the injury of hundreds of bodies and 
souls. Ought any one to visit a sick person until 
called for? is a question really worth discussing. 
' It is quite certain that all men ought not to visit 
all sick men, and that there ought to be some 
principle regulating this matter. It may be a kind 
of goodness of heart which leads a man to run in 
and see his acquaintances who are sick ; but he 
may be the very man between whom and the sick 
person there are such physical and spiritual 
antagonisms that a visit from him would increase 
the sickness of the invalid. 

But one thing seems to be well settled, that the 
initial motion is to be upon the part of the sick 
man. Is any sick, let hrm call for the Elders." 
Let him determine whom he will have, and very 
naturally, as a Christian man, he will send for 
those who are the nearest akin to him spiritually. 



A 



300 The Gospel of Common Se^tse, 



OTHER DIRECTIONS FOR THE SICK. 

In immediate connection follows what is written 
in the three following verses, i6, 17, 18: 

Confess to one another your faults and pray 
for one another, that ye may be healed. Much 
availeth the inwrought supplication of a righteous 
7na7i. Elijah was a man of like affections with us, 
and he prayed pressingly that it might not rain, 
and it rained ?iot on the earth three years and six 
months. And again he prayed, and the heaven 
gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruits 

This would seem to indicate that the prayer for 
healing was not to be offered until the patient had 
had an interview with those whom he had offended 
and confessed his fault. This is an important 
consideration generally overlooked. It is plain 
that no prayer would be of any avail for an un- 
confessing, unrepentant, uncharitable patient. 

This must be read in strict connection with 
what went before. It is a direction to a sick 
man ; one whose sickness has been brought on 
by his sin, or by some imprudence which preys 
upon his mind. 

SICKNESS PRODUCED BY MENTAL TROUBLE. 

Few persons who have never looked into it 
know what a large proportion of the sicknesses of 
the world come upon men because of some men- 
tal irregularity. Perhaps they are as many as 
are brought on by bodily excesses. Even when 
a man is temperate in eating and drinking, and 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 301 

manages his whole physical economy after the 
best known laws of hygiene, the troubles of his 
mind may make him sick. A business loss, an 
unrequited love, a fractured friendship, a disap- 
pointed hope, anxiety about wealth or reputa- 
tion, about wife or child ; jealousy, envy, malice, 
hatred — any one of these may make a man sick. 
No one of delicate organization or good con- 
science can have a quarrel with a friend without 
depression of his bodily health. The remem- 
brance of our faults toward others — faults which 
we are too proud to acknowledge, and which we 
defend in private to ourselves — will lower the 
tone of a man's health. 

CONFESSION. 
The case before us supposes a Christian who is 
sick, and who has committed no great crime, no 
crying sin, but a fault toward his brother. He is 
the man whose case was mentioned in the pre- 
ceding verses. His faults had brought him to 
his bed, his sickness had brought him to peni- 
tence ; he desires to be forgiven and healed. He 
sends for the Church officials, who use first the 
physical agents of remedy and then engage in 
prayer. Now, says the Apostle, '^Send for your 
brother, against whom you have committed a 
fault. Confess your fault to him ; perhaps that 
will bring him to perceiving that he has had 
faults towards you. When you have prayed to- 
gether, you for him and he for you, and have 



302 The Gospel of Common Sense, 

come to be loving friends again, then all may go 
right, and the peace of your mind will advance 
the recovery of your body, and so you may be 
healed/* 

In this whole matter of confession it is impor- 
tant to guard against morbid feeling and mis- 
taken action. Where another is concerned, and 
such a sin is committed that the acknowledg- 
ment to him or to the world would put him in no 
better position than be is now, why should there 
be any confession made ? Confession to other 
than the offended party, or even to the injured 
party, may itself become injurious to a wide cir- 
cle. The confession should not be made to a 
third party, but only to the party involved in the 
difficulty. Even a priest is bound to refuse to 
hear a confession" which incriminates an absent 
party ; as, for instance, where a man or woman 
confesses adultery, the confession may be taken 
in order that the person confessing may receive 
spiritual direction and help, but the partner in 
the sin must not be named, because he or she is 
not present and cannot be helped ; and the 
pastor who would seek to make the penitent re- 
veal the name of the co-sinner should be con- 
sidered a scoundrel. It is my fault against my 
brother which I must confess to my brother alone. 
That confession must always be made in a truly 
devout spirit ; in a spirit consistent with acts of 
prayer. It must not be done perfunctorily, 



The Gospel of Coimnon Sense. 303 



merely to get through a duty, but must come from 
the heart, just as prayer must come from the 
heart ; and must leave the confessor in that state 
of mind which prepares him to go to the Heav- 
enly Father and invoke all blessings upon the 
brother whom he had offended. 

And this points us to the ethical lesson on the 
other side, which is often overlooked. When my 
brother is convinced that he has committed a 
fault against me, and being sick and unable to 
visit me, sends for me and begins to make con- 
fession, I must not draw myself up haughtily and 
tell him I am glad he has come to his senses at 
length. I must not upbraid him for his fault. 
I must listen very patiently and humbly to his 
confession, examining my own heart to see 
whether there might not have been something in 
my conduct to betray my brother into his fault, 
and whether, also, I may not have so resented 
his fault as to be betrayed by indignation into 
a fault on my own part. 

I must listen with the greatest gladness, seeing 
that he has been brought by the Spirit of God to 
such a state ; and I must earnestly desire to be 
in as proper a moral position toward him. If all 
this be done, then, immediately after confession 
will follow forgiveness and prayer. He that 
had done the wrong and he that had received it 
will pray each for the other, and there will be 
real, unaffected love; and a state of love arnongst 



304 The Gospel of Common Sense. 



all Christians is that which every man who loves 
our Lord Christ does most intensely long for. 
LIMITATIONS. 

It would seem that we must still read what is 
written as bearing upon the case of a sick man, 
whose sickness has been brought on by sin, and 
who sends for the Elders of his congregation to 
come and pray for his healing. All prayer is of 
avail, because prayer is the communion of the 
soul with God ; and any man at any time may 
pray for a spiritual blessing. It is always right 
for any man to pray for such things as are dis- 
tinctly promised in the Holy Scripture. Now 
the healing of every sick man is not so promised. 
The prayer for the healing of a sick man is a 
very special kind of prayer. It is not to be pre- 
sented to Almighty God, unless the one who 
presents it, has wrought in him by the Holy 
Ghost, a conviction that in this case God intends 
to raise the man up. This seems a very impor- 
tant and much-overlooked matter. In a case of 
prayer-healing there are three factors necessary : 
(i) A righteous man to pray ; (2) his offer of 
prayer ; (3) that the prayer should be the prod- 
uct of some revelation from God, or powerful 
conviction in man's mind wrought by the Spirit 
of God, that He intends to heal the sick man. 
ELIJAH'S PRAYERS. 

It is plainly not God's intention to heal all the 
sick men or to feed all the hungry people by spe- 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 305 

cial or miraculous intervention. Widows and 
widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, and 
yet he was sent only to a widow of Zarepta. 
There were sick people in multitudes in the time 
of the Apostles, and yet the Apostles were 
directed to heal only a few such, and in every 
case there seemed to be special antecedent direc- 
tion as to which persons were to be restored to 
health. They looked upon'' the sick; it seemed 
to be a searching gaze in which there came to 
them the conviction that there was a case for 
which healing prayer might be made, failing 
which connection the prayer was not to be 
offered. All true prayer brings some spiritual 
blessing somewhere, but the prayers which are 
to affect the material world are inwrought 
prayers. All Elijah's prayers for Israel brought 
some blessings. But the cases cited by James 
were cases of inwrought" prayer, and because 
they so especially illustrated the profound mean- 
ing of our author, it maybe well that we enter 
upon an examination of them. 

While James tells us that Elijah prayed press- 
ingly " that it might not rain, we learn from the 
Scriptures (i Kings 17) that that prayer was 
founded upon a revelation from Jehovah, that He 
who is the Lord of Hosts, and who operates all 
the forces of nature incessantly, would withhold 
rain until Elijah should call for it, so that Elijah 
could go and stand before Ahab and say, '^As 



3o6 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 



Jehovah, God of Israel, Hveth, before whom I 
stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, 
but according to my word." If his conviction had 
not been founded on the word of God, his speech 
to the king would not only have been impertinent 
impudence but also outrageous blasphemy. He 
had determined that his word should be according to 
the word of Jehovah. So, after the lapse of years, 
we have that thrilling description of Elijah, with 
the priests of Baal assembled on Carmel, settling 
allegiance by the test of the God who should 
answer prayer. It was after the decision of that 
question that Elijah went up to the top of Carmel, 
and cast himself down upon the earth, and put his 
face between his knees ; but it was before that 
decision that the word of the Lord had come to 
Elijah, saying, Go show thyself unto Ahab, and 
I shall send rain upon the earth.** 

In both cases, the case of the drought and the 
case of the rain, there was in Elijah an in- 
wrought " prayer, inwrought by the Spirit and the 
word of the Lord. The energy in this case was in 
the word of the Lord that came to the man before 
he prayed, not in the prayer, although it was a 

pressing prayer, and the prayer was not less 
pressing because it was made upon the promise ; 
on the contrary, the very foundation which the 
promise afforded imparted increased energy to the 
prayer. A man who in our day should undertake 
to shut off rain for three years and then set open 



TJie Gospel of Common Sense, 307 



the fountains of the clouds would be a mere 
fanatic. So would be any man who went about 
to pray for the absolute and immediate healing of 
every sick man without a warrant from God. 
Does the Lord now ever give such a conviction ? 
There are cases so well attested that we must 
believe He sometimes does. Notwithstanding the 
irregularities, the fanaticisms, the fooleries, and 
the frauds attendant upon so much of the so-called 
faith cures, we must not allow ourselves to be 
carried away from a common-sense view of the 
truths revealed in the Sacred Scripture. 

INWROUGHT PRAYER. 
God hath ordained prayer. It must therefore 
be His intention that prayer shall be profitable. 
He has directed the modes of prayer which will be 
acceptable to Him. He has indicated the fields 
of prayer in which it may be cultivated. He has 
afforded specific promises. On those promises 
we may confidently come to Him in prayer. The 
history of exceptional cases in which the Spirit of 
God seems to have made a powerful impression 
on the spirits of intelligent, unfanatic, devout, and 
obedient Christian souls, and the answers by which 
such ''inwrought" prayers have been followed, do 
all confirm the faith of simple-hearted people. 
We are to pray for one another, and always pray 
in most humble submission to the will of God. 
When the prayers are made for other than such 
spiritual things as are covenanted in the explicit 



3o8 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



promises of Holy Scripture, we may not go around 
praying for every sick man, whether he be penitent 
or impenitent, faithful or reprobate, nor pray in 
such a manner as would indicate that we are seek- 
ing to have our wills overrule the will of Almighty 
God. 

A case like this can readily be supposed. A 
man devoutly engaged in the service of God is 
sick. He has peace with God. He could die in 
the odor of sanctity and the triumphs of faith. If 
I had command of all the forces in the universe I 
might bring that man up from his sickness into 
high health, and he might go into such courses 
as would be fatal to him and destructive to so- 
ciety. That I might not be able to foresee ; but 
God knows all things. It maybe utterly imprac- 
ticable to answer both prayers, the prayer for the 
restoration of his health and the prayer for the 
salvation of his soul. Restoration to health would 
be ruin, the salvation of his soul means death. 

As prayer is set forth in the Sacred Scripture, 
there is nothing in it to contravene either science 
or common sense. There are few ways in which 
Christians can advance their religion more than 
by dealing with Holy Scripture in the light of 
plain reason ; reason that is sanctified by humble 
submission to the will of God. 

THE LAST SENTENCE, 

We come now to the last sentence in this re- 
markable letter ; 



The Gospel of Common Sense, 309 

Brethren^ if any among you wander from the 
truth and any turn him back, let him know that he 
who turneth back a sinner from the wandering of 
his way shall save a soul from death and shall 
cover a multitude of sins T 

While logically intimate with what just precedes 
it, this saying of the Apostle closes the circle of 
his instructions, and sets before us the loftiest 
employment, and the greatest enjoyment, and the 
noblest glory that can come to humanity. The 
logical connection seems to be this, that where 
there has been mutual confession after disagree- 
ments that were injurious to soul and body and 
prayer had been made for each other, the result 
would be the saving of a soul from death. 

TRUTH. 

Truth is the purest thing in the universe. 
Truth is the most powerful thing in the universe. 
Truth is the most enduring thing in the universe. 
Truth makes God to be God, and when God came 
in the flesh, the brightest crown He could place 
upon His own head, the noblest name He could 
give to His personality was The Truths The 
greatest work in which God can be engaged is 
the propagation of the truth. Truth to be truth, 
must be absolutely unmixed. There can be 
nothing ugly, nothing foul, nothing debasing in 
it. It is the very cleanliness of cleanliness. It 
is flawless and spotless. It is this which gives it 
such force ; it is this which makes it so endur- 



3IO The Gospel of Common Sense, 

ing ; it is this which makes it so dear to the holy 
heart of God. It is this Lnto which He pours the 
molten contents of His own divine heart. More 
than if He had said, am King of kings and 
Lord of lords and the Judge of all men" was the 
word which Jesus the Christ spake when He 
said of Himself, I AM the truth." There was 
nothing to which God could be a martyr but the 
truth, and Jesus said (John 18:37), For this 
cause came I into the world, that I should bear 
witness to the truth/' that is, be *^a martyr to the 
truth." And when He went away He prophesied 
that His place would be taken by the Spirit of 
Truth," thus giving this name to the Holy 
Ghost (John 16 : 13). 

WHAT ERROR IS. 
It is to be noted that all the wrongs in the uni- 
verse begin by a wandering from the truth. 
There never could be sin which is not preceded 
by some divergence from the truth. This is so in 
every department of human thought, emotion and 
action. The word error " means wandering"; 
and so J AMES speaks of sin as wandering from the 
truth. It is because the sin begins in some slight 
departure, in the man, from that which is true, 
leading to a departure of the affections, which 
produces a departure in the outward life, that 
men should be strenuously anxious to know the 
truth, especially the truth as to their highest 
things, their highest connections ; the truth as 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 311 



to God, the truth as to their own nature, the 
truth as to their relations to God, the truth as 
to their own character. 

When men talk of the valuelessness of doctrine, 
and say it does not matter what a man believes 
so that his life is right, they show their absolute 
ignorance of the whole subject. It is as if one 
should say, it is no matter what disease a man has 
so long as he has health. The outward life of a 
man is the product of his character, and his char- 
acter is the product of his creed. If there be one 
rule without an exception this must be the rule. 
It certainly is the counterpart in the spiritual 
world of the fact in physics that no stream ever 
rises above its source. Now, the source of the 
outer life is the creed. Nay, it is something still 
stronger than that. A man is just what he be- 
lieves, no more, no less. Neither God nor the 
devil can make him any more or any less. To 
make any change in him the good or the bad need 
not strive to mould his outer life, or by any other 
process attempt to change his character except 
by efforts to make a change in his creed. If he 
have believed error, to make him a good man he 
must be brought to faith in the truth ; if he have 
such faith, to make him a bad man all that is 
necessary is to break the hold of his faith on the 
truth. 

WHAT CREED IS. 

As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.'* Now 
the phrase, thinks in his heart," is equivalent to 



312 The Gospel of Common Sense, 

creed," creed being compounded of two words, 
signifying that form of belief to which I give my 
heart. If any one shall object to this that there 
are so many who profess a good creed and lead a 
bad life, the reply is ready. In such a case the 
creed is only professed, it is not held. Indeed, a 
creed is not that which a man holds at all ; it is 
that which holds him. When a man once comes 
into vital connection with the creed, he is never 
its master ; it is always his. 

The objection to doctrinal preaching has just 
this weak foundation. There is no preaching so 
primarily important as doctrinal preaching. There 
is no knowledge of the Bible so important as a 
knowledge of its doctrines. These are what shape 
a man's character, not the poetry, the beauty, the 
sublimity of the Bible. Let every man be sure 
that his principles are more important than his 
behavior, or than any formulated rules of life he 
may make. Indeed these rules will be the 
product of principles if they have any power. A 
man who had any principles might have all the 
rules of ethics committed to memory, and capable 
of being summoned at any moment, and yet they 
would be powerful only as founded upon principles. 
If the man have good rules and a bad memory, 
his rules may be forgotten; but if he have the 
principles he can on any emergency construct the 
rule. This seems to be as true in the moral life 
as it is in mathematics. If a mathematical 



The Gospel of CommoJt Sense, 



313 



principle be made perfectly familiar to the mind 
of the child, he may forget the formal rule in his 
arithmetic, but this principle which he knows will 
enable him to reconstruct the rule whenever 
needed. 

A GRAND POSSIBILITY. 
Then James points to a grand possibility. It 
is possible for one human being to turn another 
back from his intellectual and moral and spiritual 
wanderings ; and this grand possibility ought to 
make all good men very earnest in their anxiety 
to learn how this is to be done. Plainly, it cannot 
be done by force ; plainly, it cannot be done by 
compressing a man's outward behavior by rules. 
All persecution is impertinent ; it is out of place 
in a case like this. There is but one way in which 
this work can be begun properly. As the trouble 
was in a man's wandering from the truth, the first 
point to be gained is somehow to make a fresh 
connection of that man's soul with the truth. He 
is as a planet that hath broken away from the 
power of attraction and gone wildly off at a 
destructive tangent. Nothing can be done for a 
universe going to chaos until a mode be found by 
which there shall be a restoration of the proper 
play of attractive forces. To save a man, there- 
fore, he must be brought under the power of some 
saving truth. It must get the dominance of him, 
and rule him to that degree that he will no longer 
wander away. 



314 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



When He who called Himself The Truth" 
was offering to His Father that sublime prayer 
with which he closed His career just before His be- 
trayal, He prayed for those dear disciples that they 
might be sanctified through Thy Truth." It is a 
blessed thing when such a saving truth can be 
brought to bear upon a wandering soul, and thrice 
blessed is the man who brings that truth to bear 
upon his fellow-man by its embodiment in his own 
rounded, beautiful, truth-ruled life. 

A WHOLESOME REACTION. 

Every Christian man should engage all his 
powers in the work of striving to save his own 
soul and the souls of his fellow-men ; not by any 
charm, or magical process, but by striving as far as 
possible, to bring wandering souls under the power 
of saving truths. One great stimulus to this work 
is the reflection that nothing is so saving, so 
purifying, so elevating to any man*s own soul, as 
the work of striving to save the souls of other 
men. We waste our time in dreaming of heaven 
and wishing for heaven. The best preparation for 
the world to come is the proper employment of 
all our powers in achieving the greatest things 
possible to us in this world. If the brethren of 
James had been spending all their time in bring- 
ing themselves and others under the power of 
sanctifying truth, they would not have needed a 
single admonition contained in this pungent 
epistle. If the whole Christian Church were 



The Gospel of Conimou Sense, 315 

engaged in this work there would be no space nor 
time for bickering, quarrelHng, persecution, schism, 
and all the other wrongs which have stained the 
history of the Church. 

THE GRANDEST HUMAN WORK. 
Each Christian man is stimulated to this work, 
because it is the grandest possible to any human 
being. To know the truth is the highest func- 
tion and capability of the intellect. To bring the 
truth to bear upon other minds, is the loftiest 
and noblest exercise of man's moral powers. 
What else is equal to the achievement of saving 
a soul } Is the writing of a poem } Is the carving 
of a statue } Is the painting of a picture 'i Is the 
erection of a monument } Is the creation of a 
reputation } All these things will perish. When 
Napoleon was told by the painter that the canvas 
would carry his portrait down five centuries, he 
exclaimed, " Is this all?" His mind was com- 
prehensive enough to see that, in comparison 
with the aeons, cycles and eternities of the future, 
five hundred years were an insignificant portion 
of time. 

SOUL-DEATH. 
The Holy Scriptures speak of the death of the 
soul ; the soul that sinneth, it shall die/' That 
fact, which never could have been ascertained 
without a direct revelation from Him who knows 
eternity, is imparted to us without any definite 
explanations of the modes and meanings of this 



3i6 The Gospel of Com^non Sense, 

death. We learn from nature that a body may 
die. We learn from revelation that a soul may 
die. We learn from nature that a sick body may 
be recovered. We learn from revelation that a 
sick soul may be healed. As there are physical 
remedies for bodily diseases, there is a spiritual 
remedy for soul maladies. That remedy is the 
truth. Only as a man is sanctified in the truth 
can he come into soul health; and, if he remain in 
soul sickness, he must eventually die a soul death, 
whatever that is. What that terrible catastro- 
phe is, who can comprehend } The Scriptures 
tells us the fact, and leave us with a dim intima- 
tion of all its dreadful accessories. Now, to bring 
a soul back from its wanderings to the truth, 
that is to Christ, is to secure for that soul eternal 
life, which **is a gift of God through Jesus Christ 
our Lord." Out of material things it is impossi- 
ble to construct an enduring monument ; but he 
that hath saved a soul from death has secured 
one thing permanent through eternity. There 
can not be any other work so grand as this. 
There cannot be any other work that myriads 
of years from this time shall give such profound 
satisfaction as to save a soul from death. 

COVERING SIN. 
Error and truth are polar extremes, like life 
and death. The one thing that irradiates the 
universe is truth ; the one thing which is a dark 
spot upon the universe is sin. It i- the one thing 



The Gospel of Common Sense. 317 



which God abhors ; He cannot tolerate it. 
^*Now," says JAMES, **when one converts a sin- 
ner from the error of his ways, he not only saves 
a soul from death, but he hides a multitude of 
sins." This word cover," or *'hide," is a biblical 
phrase, first in the Old Testament and then in 
the New, to signify forgiveness, as when (Ps. 32 : 
i)it is written, Blessed is he whose transgres- 
sion is forgiven, whose sin is covered." This 
Hebrew parallelism shows us that covering" 
means forgiving" when it is the act of God. 

He that hideth his own sin shall not prosper," 
but he whose sin God puts out of sight and out 
of remembrance, is a happy man. And so any 
sinner may pray, Hide Thy face from my sins 
and blot out all mine iniquities." It is a truth 
old as the Book of Proverbs, that love covereth 
all sins" (10: 12); a truth which is repeated 
by an Apostle, Charity shall cover a multitude 
of sins " (i Peter 4 : 8). To the man whose 
whole nature is turned about, who, instead of 
wanderings that is to say, leading a lawless life, 
is brought under the guiding and sustaining 
power of a saving truth, the sins of the past are 
forgiven, many or few, light or grave, for there 
comes to him the complete forgiveness of the 
Divine Father. 

There is something more stimulating than 
that. If I let my neighbor go on in sin I must 
remind myself of the reduplicating power of sin- 



3i8 The Gospel of Common Sense, 

fulness ; how it grows, how **one sinner destroys 
much good," how one sinner makes many sinners, 
some of whom are tenfold worse than himself 
Let any one consider for a moment what might 
have been the increased badness of the world if 
Paul, or Augustine, or John Newton, or any other 
sinner who has been plucked as the brand out of 
the burning" had not been converted when he 
was converted, but had gone on to an old age in- 
creasing the number and influence of his own 
sins, and multiplying corrupting agencies in the 
community. What is not seen cannot be well 
calculated. If the conversion had not taken 
place the injuriousness of each man's life would 
have been very manifest to the world. What he 
was saved from doing by his conversion can 
never be known ; but a sober calculation of the 
probabilities can be made from what is known of 
the life when it was bad. 

TRUE LIBERTY. 

If a man shall convert his neighbor from the 
error of his ways the good that neighbor shall do 
after his conversion will become known to the 
world in some measure. But all the sins he would 
have committed but for the conversion would be 
covered up and hidden away from human eyes. 
With these two things before us, namely, the pre- 
vention of a life of sinfulness, a thing so offensive 
to our Heavenly Father, and the production of a 
life radiant in truth, which is so delightful to our 



The Gospel of Couinioii Sense. 319 



Heavenly Father, the one great work ought to 
be (to every moral man, to every man capable 
of ethical ideas, to every man who applies his 
common sense to the problems of human life and 
human destiny ) the turning away of men from 
their wanderings, and fixing them in the realm, 
under the reign, of moral law. There, and there 
only, is liberty ; liberty for which millions of souls 
have sighed; liberty for which millions of men 
have died. Liberty, in whose name, as the dying 
Mme. Roland said, so many crimes had been 
committed, real, manly, moral, intellectual, spir- 
itual liberty, is secured only to the man who has 
been converted from the error of his ways by a 
conversion from the error of his thoughts. Even 
as James's great brother said, Ye shall know 
the truth and the truth shall make you free." 

To secure personal and civil liberty what have 
not men endured of hunger, and thirst, and ship- 
wreck, and imprisonment, and betrayal, and 
scourging, and torture, and death With the 
increase of the ages grows the glowing fame of 
men who have made way for liberty," even when 
those men have been fighting and dying for only 
personal and civil liberty, themselves often the 
most abject slaves of tyrannical sinfulness, like 
Danton and Robespierre and other wretched 
leaders of French revolution, and more modern 
agitators of society, who have yet to learn the 
first letters in the alphabet of freedom, till they 



320 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



shall rise to know that law is as essentially the 
basis of liberty as life is the basis of feeling, 
IMMORTAL FAME. 

Can any human being do too much to secure 
the lives, the liberties, the fortunes of human 
souls ? To such men not any monuments are 
erected upon earth, but there is immortal fame 
for them in eternity, because they wrought to 
secure souls from death and keep those souls in 
liberty. Does any one wonder that a man with 
such great intellect as the Apostle Paul turned 
aside from every path of human ambition to walk 
this way of usefulness, although it led him through 
all kinds of difficulties down to martyrdom ? The 
wonder is that in every age there are not more 
to imitate that member of the early Christian 
Church who sold himself as a slave to a heathen 
family that he might gain access to it. That 
family, in reward of faithful labor amongst them 
and their conversion to the truth, set him free. 
He used his freedom only for the purpose of sav- 
ing souls from death and hiding a multitude of 
sins, and so, sold himself again a slave to the 
Governor of Sparta, with like success and fresh 
trophies to the cause of truth. Let that man 
consider himself very small, whatever be the 
amount of his brains and his financial fortune, 
whatever be the sphere of his operations, what- 
ever be the measure of his earthly success, whose 
life is not laid out in any sphere of science, politics, 



The Gospel of Conivion Sense, 



321 



merchandise, or social life, to the great work of 
turning himself and his fellow-men away from 
their errors back to the truth. 

We can scarcely conceive the permanency of 
our identity without the continuance of our mem- 
ory. If a man in passing into another sphere, 
could drink, at the gate of the new department, 
some nepenthe which should make him forget all 
that is past, while he would appear to some ex- 
ternal eye to be the same person, he himself 
would have no consciousne^ of identity with the 
man who had crossed that portal. If a man is to 
exist millions of years after his death, if one can 
speak of years in considering the admeasurements 
of eternity, to be himself he must be able to re- 
member himself. Let a man now think what v/ill 
probably be the precious things of memory a 
myriad of years hence, when all the present state 
of terrestrial affairs shall have passed away, all 
its history destroyed, all its monuments forgotten. 
Will it be the accumulation of a few poor, pitiful 
millions of dollars, most of which he could not 
use even while in the flesh ? Will it be that his 
name was in the newspapers of his day } Will it 
be that he had a momentary thrill of physical en- 
joyment .'^ What will it be ? If, amid all these 
things, he was ever able to turn one soul from the 
error of his way, and stopped and dried up a 
stream of sin, and brought that soul into the pos- 
session of eternal life, will not the memory of 



322 The Gospel of Common Sense, 



that in the world to come be to the man some- 
thing in value outweighing all thrones and 
crowns and sceptres and terrestrial palaces ? 

With the suggestion of such a sublime possibil- 
ity, our author concludes his epistle. He lifts us 
from the low conception of ethics as being some- 
thing which furnishes rules for the regulation of a 
little life, and places us and sets it in the light of 
its true relation with the things which are unseen 
and eternal. 



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of an Old Farm,"" and*' The Honey and 
Occident Ants. " 



A series of popular discourses on Scrip- 
ture truths derived from facts in nature. 

N, Y, Observer says : — They are written 
somewhat in the vein of Professor Drum- 
mond's " Natural Law in the Spiritual 
World," and will be welcomed by intelli- 
gent readers who are awake to the discus- 
sion which is going on in the world over 
the Book of Books and the Book of Nature. 

Interior, — The author ranges through 
earth and air, finding exemplifications of 
the wisdom and power of the Almighty 
Creator in the hail and snow, the rain and 
the rainbow, flowers arjd vines, and show- 
ing both forcibly and beautifully, how the 
elements of nature can be used to illustrate 
and work out the Divine Will, and the 
knowledge of that will toward man. 

John Hall, D.D., Pastor of the Fifth 
Avenue Presbyterian Church, Neiv York.— 
** It takes familiar facts from the works of 
God and employs them, with learning and 
devoutness, for the illustration of vital 
truths, only learned from the word of God. 
Dr. McCook has here, as elsewhere, used 
his talent for natural history wisely and 
effectively; and his work is pra,ctical and 
adapted to our times. 

12 mo., Cloth, 380 pp. Price $1.25 net. 



WILBUR B. RETCHAM, Publisher, 

13 Cooper Union, New York. 



FAIRY TALES 

—OF— 
BEING 

POPULAR SCIENTIFIC PAPERS, 

BY 

Rev. J. GORDON McPHERSON, 

Author of ** Strathmore : Past and Present/^ Supersti- 
tion and Scepticism J** Etc, 



The author has **the way of putting" the 
technical language of specialists so as to 
present the result of their inquiries in forms 
likely to convey instruction to the general 
reader. To men who lived fifty years ago 
an account of these wonderful discoveries 
would have read like so many * 'fairy tales," 
hence the title. The index is particularly 
full, in order that reference to details may 
be most convenient. It will prove a help- 
ful book to all, particularly to the clergy as 
a book from which many illustrations can 
be cull6d. 

Among the many subjects are the follow- 
ing: '^Formation of Dew," * 'Color of 
Water," *'Dust and Fogs," *<Sun Spots," 

The Universal Day," *' Counting of Dust- 
Particles in Air," ''Bright Clouds on a 
Dark Night-Sky," Water Pipes and Frost," 
etc., etc.. 



12 mo., Cloth, 277 Pages. Price, $1.25. 



WILBUR B. KETCHAM, Pnblislier, 

13 Cooper Union, New York. 



OUE EEST DAY, 

ITS ORIGIN, HISTORY, AND CLAIMS, WITH 
SPECIAL REFERENCE TO PRESENT 
DAY NEEDS. 



—BY— 

THOMAS HAMILTOH, D. D. 

The New York Christian Advocate says: 
In the book we find the entire subject of 
*' Sabbath observance" most thoroughly and 
candidly considered. All the popular argu- 
ments for relaxation of the plain Bible com- 
mand are met and treated at length. The 
chapters are headed, **How Old Art Thou ?" 
* *Traces of the Sabbath in Ancient Lands and 
Literature," **A Curious Theory," ' 'The Sab- 
bath not a Jewish Institution," The Deca- 
logue and the Sabbath, " * 'Christ and the Sab- 
bath," "The Apostles and the Sabbath," "The 
Change of Day," The Church of Rome and 
the Sabbath." and then the author turns to 
the various methods of trade and amuse- 
ment to infringe upon the "Rest Day." Two 
chapters have been added upon "How the 
Conflict Goes On," and "The Conclusion of 
the Whole Matter." Any one who wishes 
information upon this subject, now one of 
the foremost in popular interest, will find 
this little book of practical value. 

Rev, C, H, Spurgeon says: "Other works 
have been good, but none could have been 
better. It is as interesting as it is instruct- 
ive, and we give it our hearty praise." 



12 mo. Cloth, 185 pp., Price, 75 Cents. 



WILBUR B. KETCHAM, Publisher, 

13 Cooper Union, New York. 



THE KING'S SON 

OR, 

A MEMOIR OF BILLY BRAY, 

By F. W. BOURNE. 



The New York Christian Advocate says : 
— *'0f Billy Bray, the famous Methodist 
preacher of Cornwall, Eng., it may be truly 
said "he yet speaketh," although he has 
been dead more than twenty years. It is 
reported that at least six hundred persons 
are known to have been led to Christ by 
reading his biography. These converts are 
found in ail parts of the world, and come 
from almost every position in life. Noted 
infidels, eminent formalists, and cultivated 
scholars, as well as obscure and vmlearned 
men, have been drawn into the kingdom of 
grace by this fascinating story. The most 
noted preacher of the age frequently finds 
the striking illustrations which enrich his 
sermons in the Life of Billy Bray." 



TWENTY-SEVENTH EDITION NOW READY. 



18 mo., Cloth. 119 pp. Price, 50 Cents. 



WILBUR B. KETCHAM, Piiblisiier, 

13 Cooper TJnion, New York. 



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